


How Derek Met His Smallest Fan

by purpleduvet (maga_nw)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Complete, Future Fic, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-30
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 10:18:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 37,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2384783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maga_nw/pseuds/purpleduvet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Derek is standing in the fruits and vegetables aisle, trying to decide between two very nice looking watermelons, when someone small crashes into his legs. </i>
</p><p>or </p><p>Derek comes back to Beacon Hills after years of being gone and meets Stiles and his kid at the supermarket.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1/2

**Author's Note:**

> Now translated into [Spanish](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10563348/chapters/23337489).
> 
> You'll notice some characters are alive and others are not mentioned. I started toying with this idea long before season 4 aired and only included a few season 3 and 3b details. So expect some vagueness.
> 
> It was edited by the wonderful Insomiak, all remaining mistakes are mine!
> 
> I split it in two parts to motivate me, but the last part is almost done and will be posted soon. Hope you enjoy!

Derek is standing in the fruits and vegetables aisle, trying to decide between two very nice looking watermelons, when someone small crashes into his legs. He looks down, moving his shopping basket out of the way, to see a pair of big, brown eyes staring up at him.

“’scuse me,” the boy says quickly and then steps on Derek’s foot in his haste to get to the end of the aisle and disappear around the corner.

Derek is still turned in the boy’s direction, trying to figure out what was so familiar about him – something vague about his scent – when a larger someone crashes into his back.

“Crap, sorry, I-”

Derek freezes at the sound of the man’s voice, an even more familiar scent hitting his nose. There’s a pause before he feels a hand on his shoulder forcing him to turn around.

“Derek?” Stiles says, and this is exactly what Derek was hoping to avoid.

-

It had been years since Derek stayed in Beacon Hills for more than a couple of weeks in a row. After the year Laura died and all the mess with Peter, the Alpha Pack and the Argents, he eventually came to the conclusion that the town didn’t want him around. He showed up every once in a while, mostly to deal with paperwork concerning his family’s properties, but he’d stopped making contact with Scott and the rest of his pack. He thought about them sometimes, when he had trouble sleeping and his brain didn’t have anything better to do but replay some of the most painful moments of his past. Sometimes he talked to Deaton on the phone, who gave him a summary of the supernatural events Derek was missing, but that was it.

Nothing much had happened in the years after he left for good. After that first streak of threats had fallen on Beacon Hills and Scott had managed to get rid of every single one, it seemed like the dodgiest side of the supernatural community had given up on the small town. The way Deaton painted it, Beacon Hills had become a safe haven for every creature who was looking for a place to live where strange events and behaviors were taken in stride by its inhabitants.

Still, Derek hadn’t been planning to return.

He went to New York first, on the second anniversary of Laura’s death, and stayed in the same apartment they had shared after the fire. He got a job at a construction site and just kind of existed for eighteen months. After that, he wandered all over the East Coast, finding jobs with odd hours and subletting basement apartments. He dated. He went out drinking with his co-workers. He ran into other werewolves who had no idea who he was but still nodded at him in passing.

Mostly, he felt invisible.

Cora was living in France, taken in by the same pack that had made a place for Isaac all those years ago. They talked once a week. Generally, Derek didn’t have much to say.

Cora kept needling him, asking him what he thought he was doing, if he was happy, if he was planning to float around the country until he disappeared, no one close enough to notice.

Derek didn’t know.

Then one day he woke up thinking about his old family home. The one that wasn’t there anymore. He thought of the land where he had grown up, now only open for the security company he paid to patrol the grounds and kick trespassers out.

Suddenly, after almost ten years, he thought of all the afternoons he had spent running around the forest with Laura and Cora and didn’t feel like his heart was breaking. He thought it would be nice to visit the place again. Walk around the preserve and try to find the tree where they had buried that time capsule when Derek was in the sixth grade. Find the creek that ran around the property, the one Laura had pushed him into once when he was eight and he had cried.

He couldn’t get it out of his head.

The following week he was entering Beacon Hills in a rental car. And over a month later, he was still there.

-

“Stiles,” Derek says in an exhale. His grip on the basket’s handle is hurting his hand. Stiles looks older. Of course, the last time Derek saw him he had been eighteen. He has to be around twenty-seven now. His hair is a mess, uncombed and rid of any product. There’s stubble dusting his cheeks. He smells like soap and maple syrup and a bit like dust. He looks surprised and tired.

“What the hell are you doing here?” He asks. Derek lifts his hand, the contents of his basket rolling to one side.

“Shopping.”

“No, shit. Are you-” He stops himself and looks around, a little wildly. “Wait, fuck, wait here. Hold this, don’t move.”

He shoves his shopping cart against Derek’s legs and practically runs around the corner. Right. The kid.

Derek stands in the same spot for almost five minutes, looking down at the mix of candy and frozen vegetables in Stiles’ cart. _Stiles has a kid_ , he thinks. _He’s an adult_.

Derek feels old.

-

It took Derek almost a week to venture out of the preserve after he got there. He was staying in one the small cabins spread around the forest. They used to rent them out in the summer, sometimes, a lifetime ago. He chose the one closest to where the house used to be and spent the first few days making it livable. It wasn’t as run down as he had expected. He suspected people were still using the cabins when they could get away with it. Maybe the same people from the security company.

He didn’t care – it was less work for him.

His trunk was full of groceries, bedding and kitchen supplies. There was no need for him to go to town until he ran out of food. He told himself he was being ridiculous, what were the chances of running into anyone he knew? Beacon Hills was small compared to New York, sure, but you could still be anonymous if you wanted to, and Derek very much wanted to.

Still, he couldn’t make himself cross the limits of his family’s property until he was so desperate for something to eat that didn’t come out of a can that he was considering finding some kind of edible weed growing in the forest.

So he went grocery shopping.

Instead of sticking to the suburbs, though, he drove an extra ten miles to the more urban part of town and left his car in a crowded parking lot, unnoticeable among a sea of other dark SUVs. He was in and out of the store in twenty minutes, and he practically sped back home. He didn’t run into anybody he knew.

-

He got careless. That’s why he’s standing next to the watermelons now, holding Stiles Stilinski’s groceries. After that first time, when everyone around him was a stranger and the woman at the register barely even glanced at him, he started making the trip to the store a weekly thing. He liked the feeling of belonging but still being invisible.

And now here he is. Turning over in his head this new image of Stiles. Stiles who is a father. Stiles who is responsible of another human life, when he could barely take care of himself the last time Derek saw him.

When Stiles rounds the corner with the boy in tow, Derek can’t help but stare.

The boy has to be around six, he comes up to Stiles’ hip. His hair is cut very short, a few shades too dark to be blond. He’s wearing what can only be pajama pants, little Zs printed all over the light blue fabric. His t-shirt looks like half of a cheap Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles costume. He’s wearing small red crocs.

And when he looks up at him, there’s no doubt in Derek’s mind that the boy is Stiles’.

“Um, sorry about that,” Stiles says and Derek drags his eyes away from the kid to look at him. He seems uncomfortable. “I can take that back now.”

He reaches out for the cart and Derek awkwardly releases it. The boy lifts the arm he was hiding behind his back and drops a box of Oreo Pop-tarts inside. Stiles rolls his eyes and pretends he didn’t see.

“So, you’re back,” he says. Derek nods. His neck feels stiff. “Where are you staying?”

“The preserve.” His voice comes out hoarse and he has to clear his throat. The boy looks at him, big eyes assessing him. “Hello,” Derek tells him.

He sees Stiles’ hand tighten on the boy’s shoulder.

“This is Nate.”

“Hello, Nate,” Derek amends.

“Bud, this is an old…friend of mine.” Derek ignores the break in the sentence and nods.

“I’m Derek.”

Nate’s eyes grow so big he looks like a cartoon character. His whole face goes bright red and he turns to look up at Stiles, who looks exactly the same for some reason.

“ _Dad_ ,” Nate whispers urgently, a small hand closing on the hem of Stiles’ shirt. Derek’s own eyes bulge. Stiles is a _dad_.

“It’s too early for this,” Stiles mutters and closes his eyes.

-

When Derek eventually went exploring to the old site, he was surprised to find that nature had failed to claim back that area of the forest. He had been expecting weeds and fallen branches. But the clearing looked taken care of. The grass was long but bright green, not scorched like he had been fearing. Derek could hear the creek running close by, birds chirping on the tree tops.

For the first time in years he felt at home and he had to sit down. He dropped right in the middle of the clearing and imagined a house around him. He could do it. Not only did the very land seem to be waiting for something, but he could picture himself building a new house there, for once without his chest seizing.

He waited up that night and called Cora when he knew she was sure to be up and asked her what she thought. She didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and Derek started to get anxious. He wouldn’t do anything if his sister didn’t agree, the land was as much hers as it was his, but it would hurt to hear her refuse.

“You’ll be okay doing that by yourself?” She asked and Derek let out a breath.

“I think I will,” he replied and the next day he was calling contractors.

-

Nate is staring at Derek like he’s waiting for him to tell him the meaning of life. Stiles looks completely mortified. Derek has no idea what’s going on.

“What?” He asks, resisting the urge to take a step back.

“You’re Derek,” Nate says, as if Derek is not aware of his own name.

“Oh, God. I did not think my day would go like this,” Stiles’ cheeks are still flushed, he’s flattening his hair against his head and avoiding Derek’s eyes.

“Stiles.”

“I-” Stiles starts to say but Nate steps in front of him and yanks on Derek’s basket, making him look down at him.

“Can you really punch through a cement wall?” He asks loudly and Stiles lets out a nervous laugh. Derek is stunned into silence for a second before he makes a show of looking around them and leaning down to whisper, “Only you and your dad know about that.”

Nate’s eyes widen even more, his face breaking into a huge, gap-toothed smile.

“Can you show me?” He looks so excited, so much like Stiles for a second, Derek feels like he’s dreaming. Is he really having a conversation with Stiles’ _son_?

“Another time,” he says, flicking his eyes up to Stiles, who is watching Nate with a small smile on his face. When he catches Derek looking, his smile turns a bit sour.

“I may have told Nate about you, occasionally.” He runs a hand through his hair again. “Are you really staying at the preserve?”

“I’m rebuilding.”

Stiles nods.

“Are you… Dude, get your hand out of there.” He pries Nate’s small hand out of Derek’s basket. “Sorry, we’re working on our snooping tendencies.”

Derek looks at Stiles, his eyebrows going up, his mouth twitching without his permission. Stiles laughs again, scratching at his cheek, dropping his eyes.

“I kinda missed that look,” he says. He takes Nate’s hand and pulls him away from Derek. “Listen, come over for lunch. It’s Saturday, you’re not doing anything today, right? We can catch up. Anybody know you’re here?”

“Only Cora.” Derek is having trouble keeping up with everything happening right now. “I, uh, I was going to-”

“What?” Stiles stares. Nate stares. They are both daring him to refuse. Derek looks down at his groceries (toothpaste, cream cheese, a pair of socks) and sighs.

“I’ll put this back.”

-

They follow him as he drops every item where it belongs and then he trails after them as Stiles pays at the register. Nate keeps looking over his shoulder at him, and Derek tries to smile, but he thinks it comes out pained. Stiles keeps Nate’s hand in his all the way to their car.

“You’re riding shotgun,” he announces as he unlocks the trunk and drops his bags inside. “I don’t trust you to follow us in your car.”

“What happened to the jeep?”

Stiles looks at him as if he just asked the most ridiculous thing imaginable.

“It’s been almost ten years, Derek. Did you think everything would start back up just the same as it was when you left?”

Derek tamps down on the apology that almost escapes his lips and sets his shoulders.

“I guess I didn’t think you would ever be mature enough for a grownup car,” he says instead and his eyes slide down to Nate, who is still looking at him. Derek doesn’t think he’s blinking. “Your dad used to be a real pain in the butt.”

Nate frowns at Stiles, letting go of his hand. Stiles looks hurt. Derek thinks he made a mistake.

-

The drive to Stiles’ place is quiet and tense. Nate is surprisingly grumpy and serious for someone so small. If Derek had ever imagined what Stiles’ kid might act like, it wouldn’t have been like this. He wonders what Nate’s mother is like.

Stiles is quiet, too. He stares ahead and doesn’t even turn the radio on. Derek regrets his comment back at the parking lot. He feels like he poked on an old wound and reopened it.

Ten minutes into the trip, he catches Stiles looking at him out of the corner of his eye.

“You’re different,” he says when he realizes Derek is watching him.

“It’s been ten years, Stiles.” He smiles a little and Stiles frowns.

“This is so weird.”

“What’s weird?” Nate asks from the back. He sounds affronted.

Derek turns around in his seat. Nate is sitting behind Stiles, seatbelt done and hands folded on his lap. He can’t believe this is Stiles’ kid. Then he looks at his outfit. Stiles is also wearing what are probably his sleeping clothes. They look like they woke up, realized they didn’t have anything to eat and simply walked out of the house.

“I’m weird,” Derek tells him.

“You’re not.”

“I’m not?”

Nate shakes his head. He’s clutching at his knees, his little knuckles white.

“Thank you, Nate.” He sits back properly. “Nate says I’m not weird.”

“Who the hell are you…?” Stiles trails off, checking the rearview mirror.

“You said hell!” Nate announces loudly and Stiles winces, caught.

-

Derek doesn’t know what he was expecting, but a two-story house in a nice, seemingly expensive neighborhood isn’t it. His surprise must show on his face, because Stiles snorts as he parks in the driveway.

“Maybe I’m doing really, really good these days. How would you know?” He gets out of the car before Derek can reply. Behind him, Nate is fumbling with his seatbelt, and Derek leans back and helps him.

“I’ll show you my room,” Nate says as Stiles opens the door for him. “Do you like Lego?”

“Um, yes.”

Derek is not used to people getting this comfortable with him this quickly. Especially kids. He is used to be seen as intimidating, distant, unapproachable. He wonders just how often Stiles has talked about him to his son.

“Derek and I have to talk first.” Stiles helps Nate jump out of the car. “You can play after lunch.”

Nate scowls, little brows furrowing. “What’s for lunch?” He asks, sullen.

“Mac and cheese?” Stiles looks at Derek, who nods when he realizes that they are waiting for him to approve. Nate grins. “Want to get everything ready while I bring these bags inside?”

Nate runs to the door, tries to open and runs back to get the keys from Stiles.

“Mac and cheese’s his favorite,” Stiles says softly as he’s taking the bags from the trunk. “But he’s only allowed to eat it once a week. And he gets to cook it.”

“Will he be okay?” Derek asks, looking at the front door, now hanging open. He can hear pans clattering from inside the house.

“He knows not to touch the stove.”

Derek takes all the bags as Stiles locks the car and leads the way to his house. Inside it smells clean and airy, like they left all the windows open before they went out. The house is large and modern, all open doorways and clear hardwood floors. It’s also a complete mess. They walk into a small hall where they kick off their shoes and then up three steps into a sitting room. There are cardboard boxes piled up in every corner, piles of papers and old-looking books, toys and movie cases strewn around the floor. Careful not to bump into anything, they go through a wide archway that leads to the kitchen, which is pretty much in the same state.

The boxes here are labeled _KITCHEN_ in what must be Nate’s scrawl.

Nate is standing on a small stool at the sink, pouring water into a pot. When he looks back to wave Derek over, he spills most of it down his front. He doesn’t seem to care, though. He just huffs in annoyance and starts again.

Derek leaves the bags on the counter and goes over to help.

It’s been years since he’s been around kids, and everything about Nate kind of fascinates him. From his thin arms straining to hold the pot in place, to his tiny, scrunched up nose. Standing on the stool, he doesn’t even reach Derek’s shoulders.

He’s explaining the process to make the best macaroni and cheese in his high, serious voice, checking that Derek is listening every once in a while. Behind them, Stiles is putting the groceries away, quietly cursing every time he trips over something on the floor.

“Sometimes we make our own and sometimes we make the real one in the box,” Nate is explaining. “I like our own when my dad makes it but I like the box one when I make it best.”

“Nate is the best chef in the house,” Stiles says. “And the best artist and the best spider finder.”

“Dad is the best story teller.”

Derek looks behind him to see Stiles smile to himself as he picks up a pile of papers from the table and puts it on the counter next to an old toaster.

“How long have you been living here?”

“Like one million days,” Nate replies, measuring macaroni carefully.

“Two months,” Stiles says, laughing.

“How many days is two months?”

“Sixty-one.”

“It feels like a million,” Nate sighs.

“How long have you been back?”

Derek turns around, holding his hand out to Nate, who is slowly pouring the right amount of salt into his palm. Stiles is not looking at him, but Derek can hear his heart’s rate pick up slightly. Like he knows Derek is watching him.

“A little over a month.” Stiles hums, still clearing the table. He’s still thin, but he’s filled out since high school. His shoulders look rounder than he remembers. There are also dark circles under his eyes, and his face is a little too pale for this time of the year. “I’m staying in one of the cabins in the preserve.”

“Cabins,” Stiles repeats, frowning. “Are these new cabins or were they always there? Why didn’t I know of these cabins?”

“I’m actually surprised you didn’t know,” Derek muses, raising an eyebrow, and Stiles mirrors him. “Where do you think I stayed those first few months?”

He watches Stiles’ face go thoughtful and then clear with realization.

“But you’re rebuilding?”

“Maybe just building. I’m not planning on living by myself in a house designed for fifteen people.”

“Is that a crack at my house of choice? I’ll have you know the rent is a steal. I seriously questioned the owner’s sanity when I read the number.”

“How many rooms?”

“Let’s just say there’s plenty of space for guests.”

-

Nate is staring at Derek as he puts a first forkful in his mouth. He chews slowly, squinting as if he’s assessing the quality of Nate’s dish and then looks the boy in the eye.

“This is the best macaroni and cheese I have ever tasted,” he declares, completely serious. Nate breaks into a smile.

“Really?”

“I’ll have to steal the recipe.” He shoves more into his mouth and watches Nate go pink with happiness as he digs in.

“Stop being cute with my kid, please,” Stiles mutters so only Derek can hear. When he looks over, he sees that Stiles looks about as happy as Nate.

“I’ll eat your share if you don’t hurry up,” he tells him and Stiles pulls his bowl closer to him, glaring.

“I’ll stab you with my spork.”

-

After lunch, Nate hurries upstairs to watch a show he never misses on TV, his Lego plans forgotten. Derek and Stiles sit across from one another, the remains of Nate’s masterpiece between them.

“This is so fucking weird,” Stiles eventually says, cursing freely now that they are alone. “Who knew you were good with kids.”

“Who knew you had a kid.”

“Um, everyone but you.”

There’s a pause, Derek looks down to his hands resting on the table.

“How old is he?” He asks after a few seconds and hears Stiles sigh.

“Going on seven.”

“He’s…he looks like you.”

“He looks nothing like me.”

“He does.” Derek looks up. “When he smiles he looks just like you.”

Stiles looks so tired. He’s slumping back on his chair, his hair pointing everywhere. Derek wants to ask what’s wrong, but he feels like he’s not entitled to. He doesn’t regret leaving, but maybe he’s starting to regret cutting off all communication with Beacon Hills. He wonders who else has kids. Who left, who stayed. Did they go to school? Did they get married? Who is Nate’s mother? Why can’t Derek smell her in the house?

“Where have you been?” Stiles asks first, and Derek tells him. He talks about New York and about working weird hours and being tired all the time. He talks about working in construction and in copy editing and farming and bar tending. Only Derek talks. By the time he starts telling Stiles about cleaning out the cabin he’s staying in, he’s only learned that Stiles is working in something related with books, and that’s it.

Stiles listens and asks questions and slouches further and further into his chair. It’s barely five in the afternoon. Derek can hear the TV upstairs, a door swinging open and closed as if pushed around by a breeze and, when he concentrates, Nate’s even breathing.

“Sorry,” Stiles says around a yawn. “We’re having trouble adjusting to the new house.”

“You’re not sleeping?”

“Well, Nate is not sleeping, so I’m not either.” He pauses, looking at the clock hanging next to the fridge. “Is he asleep?”

“Yeah.” Derek tilts his head to the side, picking up all the little noises around them. “I think he fell asleep with the TV.”

“Shit,” Stiles mutters and rubs at his eyes. “He’ll be up at midnight.”

“You should sleep now, then.” Derek stands up and starts clearing the table. “I’ll go.”

He starts washing dishes – Nate used an alarming amount of pots for only one batch of macaroni and cheese. When he’s done, he’s expecting to find Stiles asleep on the table. He jumps when he turns and finds Stiles’ eyes on him.

“You’re not going to ask me anything?”

Derek wipes his hands on his jeans. “Next time.”

“Give me your phone.” Stiles holds out his hand. Derek gives him his phone.

-

By the time Derek is back in the grocery store’s parking lot getting his car he has five new texts.

_told everyone you’re back_

_varying degrees of anger and surprise. expect stern talking to’s_

_nate is saying your name in his sleep, not sure if cute or creepy…_

_did I mention you look good for an old man?_

_ignore the last message I’m sleep drunk. good night._

-

Earth is being dug up, a perimeter is set up. The basic outline of the new house is decided. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, kitchen and dining room, living room. The basement will stay open for now, he’ll think about adding new rooms later, after everything else is done. They say it will take between two or three months. He doesn’t want wood paneling, he wants cement blocks and bricks. He wants the best electric installation he can afford and an alarm system that will alert him if even a squirrel steps too close to his front door.

-

Stiles calls him Sunday afternoon. Derek stares at his phone, debating whether to answer or not. There’s a pile of blueprints on the table in front of him that he is supposed to approve by tomorrow and he has dinner in the oven. Stiles’ contact picture is a shot of his haggard face the day before, taken with the front camera of Derek’s cellphone. Even blurry and small on his screen Derek feels the weight of his stare, dark eyes boring into his.

He picks up.

“Stiles.”

“Derek,” Stiles’ voice is loud and alert. After staring at his picture, Derek had been expecting barely a sleepy murmur. “What kind of greeting is that?”

“What?”

“Let’s try again.” He hangs up and a second later Derek feels his phone vibrating against his ear. He picks up again.

“Hello, Stiles,” he sighs.

“Wrong!” Someone very young laughs. “Guess who?”

“Mmh,” Derek hums, pretending to think. “Is this Nate?”

“No!”

Derek frowns. He looks at his screen again, and doesn’t recognize the number.

“I give up, then,” he says. “Who is this?” But his phone is vibrating again.

“Hello?”

“That wasn’t me, that was a baby!” This time he’s sure it’s Nate.

“I’m sorry, I’m not good at this game,” Derek says, hoping he doesn’t get hung up on again. “Of course you sound older.”

“Yes,” Nate confirms, settling the matter quickly. “You’re invited to dinner.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to cook?”

“Scott is going to cook. Dad says you can’t say no. Can you bring ice-cream? Dad forgot.”

Derek sits back in his chair, he wasn’t expecting to be ambushed so soon.

“What’s your favorite flavor?” He asks. He can hear a lot of voices in the background. Stiles and Scott, several women, a small child talking excitedly.

“Chocolate and banana!” Nate announces. “And Dad says…Dad says to tell you we are at Grandpa’s house.”

“Got it,” Derek sighs.

“Will you show me how to punch through a wall today?” Nate whispers, his voice sounds muffled, like he’s covering the receiver with his hand. Derek can’t help but smile.

“Your grandpa wouldn’t like that.”

-

The old Stilinski household is a lot closer to the preserve than Stiles’ new house. It takes Derek only fifteen minutes to get there, even after taking a detour to get Nate’s ice-cream. There are five cars parked in front of the driveway and the entire house is lit up. Derek can hear everyone talking inside even with his windows up.

A hush falls over when he turns off the engine. He’s expecting the door to open but nothing happens. If he strains, he can hear someone shushing the kids, and then he sees curtains twitching and two small faces appear at the front window. Nate waves.

Feeling out of place, he gets out of his car and walks over to the door, ice-cream held to his chest. Again, he expects the door to open when he reaches the top step, but it remains closed even though he can hear someone waiting on the other side. With a sigh, he knocks.

“Who is it?” A laughing voice calls from the other side and Derek rolls his eyes. Leave it to them to make this as awkward as possible.

Still, he swallows his pride and says his name out loud.

The door opens and Derek is greeted by a slightly-grayer-than-he-remembers Sheriff Stilinski. He claps Derek’s hand firmly, eyes crinkling in a smile. “Long time no see, son.”

“Yeah, uh.” He fumbles with the ice-cream, scrambling for something to say. “It’s good to see you, sir.” He winces at himself but the Sheriff just pats his shoulder and ushers him inside. He’s instantly tackled by Nate, who crashes into his legs and looks up at him, a big smile on his face.

“Did you remember the ice-cream?” He asks just as a toddler catches up to him and clings to his small back.

“Ice-cream?” She says, doing a pretty good imitation of Nate’s tone.

“ _I’ll_ take the ice-cream.” The sheriff plucks the bag from Derek’s hand and walks further into the house. “None of this until after dinner.”

“Aw, Grandpa!” Nate calls, following him.

“Aw, Grandpa!” The little girl choruses, running a little unsteadily behind him.

“He’s not your Grandpa,” Derek hears Nate say before they disappear around a corner.

Derek is left standing in the entrance hall, the door still open behind him. There’s a collection of shoes just next to him, only two are child size and he recognizes Stiles’ sneakers from the day before.

“What the hell are you doing?” Derek looks up to find Stiles staring at him. He still looks like he could use about ten hours of sleep and his smile is not completely reaching his eyes. “You planning on running away?”

“No,” Derek replies. He’s not. He just doesn’t know what to do. Two days ago he wouldn’t have even imagined he would be doing this. The last time he was in the same room as the people currently waiting for him at least half of them were covered in blood. Stiles had still been mostly broken, not yet recovered from the Oni. Allison and Isaac had left for France, Erica and Boyd were not part of Derek’s pack anymore – Scott was their Alpha.

Derek wasn’t anyone’s anybody.

Derek still isn’t.

“Then close the door, lose your shoes and get in here,” Stiles says, eyebrows high on his forehead, arms crossed in front of him, like he’s daring Derek to disobey. Even a grown adult with a kid, he’s still a little shit.

Derek kicks off his boots, pulls the door closed and joins Stiles at the entry way.

Was Stiles always this tall? Derek thinks he may have been left a couple of inches behind. He didn’t notice the day before, but Stiles seems to have grown into the big hands that looked so out of place when he was a teenager.

“Happy?” He asks, standing in front of him.

Stiles’ wry smile makes another appearance.

“Let’s just have dinner, okay?”

-

Everyone turns to look at him as soon as Derek steps into the next room and he halts. His back straightens without his consent, frozen under the five pairs of eyes suddenly trained on him. Stiles walks into him with a soft _oof_.

They are all sitting around a coffee table, glasses and bottles scattered on the top. Scott stands up, expression serious. There’s something about him that makes Derek want to take a step back, but it lasts only until Scott smiles, and he looks seventeen all over again. Except for the beard.

Melissa McCall and Lydia are sitting together in a worn-looking armchair, each a glass in their hand. Erica and Boyd are standing, slightly behind Scott, smiling. No one looks like they’re going to attack him. No one looks ready to fight, or demand answers or throw a drink at his face.

Behind him, Stiles nudges him to keep walking.

Scott gives him a big hug, patting his back and everything.

“You look good, man,” he says when he releases Derek, holding him at arm’s length and giving him a quick onceover. “The hair is a little out of control, but other than that, you don’t look older than twenty-nine.”

“Your beard makes you look forty,” Derek replies and Scott laughs, shakes him a little by the shoulders.

“I like the unwashed mountain-man look,” Erica says.

“I wash.” Derek brings a hand up to his admittedly shaggy hair.

“We wouldn’t have let you in if you didn’t.” Boyd wraps his hand around Derek’s, thumps his shoulder and tightens his grip as he says, “It’s good to have you back.”

“I definitely remember you a lot less hairy, though,” Lydia says from his spot next to Scott’s mother. Her eyes roam from Derek’s face to his chest. “Everywhere.”

“I think we can move on from the body hair talk now, guys.” Stiles walks around Derek and flops down in Scott’s vacated seat. “We are all older and hairier.”

“Speak for yourself,” Lydia sniffs, taking a sip from her drink. “And I wasn’t complaining.”

“You look great,” a new voice offers, and Derek turns to see Allison coming in behind him. “But it’s not like Cora and Isaac didn’t send pictures, occasionally.”

“What?”

“Just because you didn’t ask after us doesn’t mean we didn’t ask after you, dude,” Stiles says. When Derek just stares at him, he sighs and continues, “Isaac keeps in touch, he sees Cora almost every day and so we have a collection of Skype screenshots large enough to compete against these two’s external drive worth of baby pictures.” He nods towards Erica and Boyd.

Derek blinks and decides to focus on what’s in front of him instead of asking Stiles why he let Derek talk himself hoarse the day before if he already knew about him from his little sister.

“Congratulations,” he says to Boyd and Erica, who beam. “She’s beautiful.”

Something beeps in what Derek assumes is the kitchen – he didn’t spend much time in Stiles’ house back in the day – and Scott excuses himself. Nate mentioned he was cooking dinner.

“Sit down, you look ridiculous,” Lydia tells him and Derek drops down on the seat next to Stiles’. He looks around him, all their faces are familiar and yet he knows next to nothing about who these people are now. The room smells like all of them, even Scott’s scent when he hugged him was a mix of a lot of little scents that Derek knows make up the whole of them.

Stiles, underneath that strange combination of maple syrup and dust, smells like pack.

Pressed against him to make room for Allison, Derek can feel Stiles’ heartbeat steadily drumming along. He can feel him breathing, relaxing further into the couch as if he’s seconds away from falling asleep.

“We’re all waiting for you to start talking.” Erica gestures a ‘go ahead’ with her hand, nails a dark purple.

“About what?”

“Try the last nine and a half years.” Lydia raises an eyebrow at him. Her hair is cut just over her shoulders, still wavy and a brighter red than he remembers.

“I thought Isaac kept you updated,” Derek argues, knowing it’s pointless. Nobody even bothers to answer, they just stare. So Derek finds himself retelling a summarized version of the stories he told Stiles just the day before. They all seem to listen attentively – Ms. McCall nodding him along, Boyd and Erica never taking their eyes off him, even though Derek knows they must be tuned in to whatever their daughter is doing.

Stiles is a solid weight against his arm.

“Didn’t you work for a newspaper for a while?” Allison asks at one point. Derek is already telling them about the construction plans.

“Only for six months, back in Maine.”

“Writer?”

“Editing.” Derek feels Stiles shift, sees him turn his head towards him out of the corner of his eye. “Graveyard shift.”

“They still have newspapers in Maine?” Lydia asks, sounding as if the mere idea is idiotic. “Haven’t they heard of the environmental movement?”

“This was five years ago, and it was a very small publishing company. I don’t think anyone outside the payroll read it.”

“That makes it even more of a waste,” Lydia sniffs.

There’s a clatter somewhere inside the house and then a series of running footsteps approaching. Nate skids into the sitting room in his socks and tumbles into Boyd’s lap.

“Watch it, buddy,” Stiles says, so softly only Derek hears him. The toddler appears a second later, going straight to her father, laughing and throwing her tiny arms out. Her skin is a dark, golden brown, her hair a mop of dark curls bouncing on her head, a couple pink barrettes barely holding on.

Boyd picks her up and sits her on his shoulder.

“Lucy, have you met Derek?” Erica asks her, grabbing one of her flailing feet.

“Derek?” Lucy asks, looking around. Derek waves and Nate, seeing him, flies to wedge himself between him and Stiles. Stiles groans when a he gets a knee in the gut. “He brought ice-cream.”

“Do you want to tell Derek how old you are?”

“Like this!” She holds up her hand in front of her and Nate sighs as if this is something that he has to deal with often, “That’s two, you’re _three_.”

-

There’s a small altercation right before the meal, in which Nate announces that he’s going to sit next to Derek but there’s not enough space for Lucy to sit on Nate’s other side, so everyone has to change seats before tears are shed. Nate drags his chair closer to Derek than is comfortable for either of them to eat, asks him if he likes ice-cream. Lucy stares at Nate as if she’s committing every word he says to memory.

Can three year-olds have crushes? Derek is not sure, but Lucy seems to be carrying a pretty big torch for the youngest Stilinski.

Derek is engrossed in a serious discussion about the best dessert foods when he realizes that no one else is talking. He pretends he doesn’t notice everyone’s eyes are on him and just agrees with Nate that anything containing chocolate is instantly at the top of the list.

When Lucy loudly confesses she likes rice pudding the best, Nate instantly turns to her to try to convince her of how wrong she is. It’s only then that Derek looks up and finds no one is trying to pretend they’re not staring.

“D’you think Scott needs help?”

“Surprisingly enough, he turned out to be the most competent in the kitchen of the bunch,” the sheriff says. “After Nate, of course.”

“I only know how to make mac and cheese and cereal.”

“That’s impressive for a nine year-old.” Melissa (as she insisted Derek to call her) gives Nate a smile.

“I’m six!”

“ _Six_? Even more impressive.”

Dinner is lasagna. Scott finally appears carrying two steaming platters, his forehead damp. Everyone makes room in the table and Lydia starts serving.

Derek can’t really remember the last time he shared dinner with a large group of people. He’s hesitant to start thinking about it, he’s pretty sure the last time was with his family and it’s only recently that he’s managed to think about those days without hurting and this is not the time or place to get nostalgic.

Everyone is talking about their weekend, about their jobs, their plans for the summer. Erica and Boyd’s conversations seem to revolve around Lucy more than anything else, Allison and Stiles are talking about some sort of translation. The sheriff and Melissa are making sure that the kids’ food makes it to their mouth and not the tablecloth. Lydia and Scott are seated at the far end of the table, huddled together and talking quietly among themselves.

Scott catches Derek’s eye and smiles, inviting him to ask.

“You haven’t told me anything about you,” he says instead.

“We have to make you suffer for a while, man.” Stiles hasn’t eaten much, Derek notes. His plate is still half full, while everyone else is on their second helping. “I mean, you come back and you don’t even bother to tell anybody….”

“I thought Cora kept you well informed,” Derek says, sharper than he intended.

“That’s not the point.” Stiles drops his fork and just like that, the pleasant atmosphere at the dinner table disappears.

“I didn’t think you would want to hear from me.” Derek tries to keep the resentment out of his voice, but he doesn’t think he’s very successful. “You couldn’t get rid of me fast enough the last time I was here.”

“What even are you talking about?”

“No one wanted to get rid of you,” Erica says.

Derek can’t say it out loud, but he knows. Back then, when everything was a mess and all the pain was still fresh. After Peter died the second time, after Scott finished establishing himself as Beacon Hills’ Alpha, what was Derek supposed to do? They had made it clear from the start that being part of the same pack as him was out of the question. He couldn’t even get involved with someone without them turning out to be a threat.

A serial-killing demon had taken over Stiles right before his eyes, Erica and Boyd had almost died without anyone even knowing – sealed away in a vault, Isaac had ended up moving to another continent. Not even his sister stayed. Was Derek supposed to stay, among all the memories and the people that came to him only when it was a matter of life and death?

“You disappeared,” Scott says. “And you just didn’t come back. You always came back before.”

“Deaton knew I was leaving,” Derek is aware he sounds defensive, but it’s a roomful of people against one, and he’s feeling attacked.

“As if Deaton ever told us anything not completely cryptic.” Stiles sits up, eyes boring into Derek. “It took months before Cora said anything.”

“Are you fighting?” Nate asks loudly. He sounds like a tiny parent, chastising his kids. He’s glaring at Stiles, his hands flat on the table, butt half out of his chair.

“No one is fighting,” Melissa assures him. “They just don’t know how to talk like adults.”

“You are not supposed to raise your voice,” Nate explains, his voice definitely a few notches too loud, but no one mentions it. Stiles just looks at him quietly, sighs.

“Sorry, Nate,” Scott is the first to say.

“You’re right, we shouldn’t raise our voices,” Erica follows.

“You tell them, bud,” Boyd winks at him.

Nate looks around the table, huffs and says, “Can we have ice-cream now?”

-

Before eight, Nate and Lucy are passed out on one of the couches and Derek and Stiles have been shamed into doing the dishes.

Stiles washes while Derek waits with a dishcloth in his hands, both in complete silence. Derek can hear everyone talking at the table, the smell of coffee still strong in the kitchen. Stiles is scraping at an oven pan like it personally insulted him, color high on his cheeks.

Derek allows himself to look at his profile.

The stubble on his face is darker than the day before, his hair is damp and sticking up from the steam and because he keeps rubbing his arm against his forehead. His mouth is turned down at the corners, his eyes tired.

“Did you sleep at all last night?” Derek asks before he can stop himself.

Stiles is quiet for a few seconds before he sighs, “Nate woke up at around two, wouldn’t go back to sleep.”

“How long has he been having trouble sleeping?”

“Since around the time we moved, I guess. He was better when we were back at the apartment.”

“Apartment?”

Stiles sighs again, gives the pan a few more aggressive scrubs before he lets it sink in the hot water. “I own a store downtown. A small bookstore, like, for special books. Our kind of books.”

Derek stares. Stiles is talking down at the sink.

“There’s a small apartment above the store. We lived there since Nate was about Lucy’s age until I found the house.”

“You and….”

“Me and Nate,” Stiles says with finality. Derek doesn’t push it.

“He doesn’t like the house?”

“He hasn’t said anything.” He picks the pan back out of the water. “But he’s angry, I think. He acts like he can’t stand me.”

“That’s not true,” Derek says but now that he thinks about it, Stiles may have a point. Nate does seem a little quick to get angry at Stiles.

“You didn’t know him before,” Stiles continues. “He trailed after me like I was a superhero, I swear. He wouldn’t leave a room without giving me a hug. Now the only time he seems to care about what I’m saying is story time.”

He trails off, and Derek swears his cheeks go a little redder.

“That’s something.”

“That’s…that’s not even about me, he just likes the stories. And now he won’t need them anymore.”

“Why not?”

Stiles doesn’t say anything. He washes dishes and Derek dries them and puts them away.

Later, when they’re finishing up, Stiles speaks up.

“I’ll text you the store’s address. Allison and Lydia help me out sometimes, but mostly it’s just me. You could keep me company, if you’re not doing anything. I’ll…I’ll tell you about the things you missed. In payment for the ice-cream.”

“You don’t have to pay me back for the ice-cream.” Stiles says nothing. “Is Nate going to be at school?”

“Summer vacation. Man, remember when summers were supposed to be all about doing nothing?”

Derek frowns, “He goes to work with you?”

“Day camp.”

“Is that… I mean, how safe is Beacon Hills? Lately.”

“Most of the group leaders are supernatural, actually.” Stiles takes the dishcloth from Derek and wipes his hands dry. “Nate’s is a werewolf.”

Derek’s frown deepens, shoulders tensing.

“Are they in Scott’s pack? Who-”

“It’s Boyd!” Scott yells from the dining room.

“Are you eavesdropping?” Stiles yells back. There is no answer. “Okay, it’s Boyd. But there _are_ other werewolves around. And no, they’re not in Scott’s pack. But there’s no other Alphas, either.”

-

Everyone is getting ready to go when Derek and Stiles join them in the dining room. Boyd holds a sleeping Lucy in his arms as Erica tugs a jacket around her tiny shoulders, Allison is rummaging through her purse for her car keys and Scott and Lydia are, to Derek’s surprise, going home together.

“It was good to see you,” Scott says over another hug. “You need to invite us to the house warming when you’re done.”

“Yeah.” Derek awkwardly pats Scott’s back. “I, uh, I will.”

When they break apart, Stiles is staring at Derek as if he’s embarrassing himself. Derek scowls in his direction as Erica pulls him into a shorter but more painful hug. She pinches the back of his neck between two very sharp nails as makes him promise he’ll keep in touch.

It’s not until everyone is gone that Derek realizes that he was supposed to leave with the rest. In the house, only Melissa and the Stilinskis remain, and Derek feels suddenly out of place.

They are all sitting around a new batch of coffee, Nate still curled up on the couch.

“Do you mind if Nate and I crash here tonight? I don’t want to risk him waking up,” Stiles asks, his cheek resting on his folded arms.

“Of course you can stay, sweetie,” Melissa says and oh. This is another new development, but Derek is less surprised about it. Even he had been able to predict a Stilinski-McCall union back in the day, and not necessarily of the parent variation.

“Are you staying too, Derek?” The sheriff asks and Derek almost chokes on his coffee. It burns on its way down.

“No, sorry. I shouldn’t have stayed so late.” He coughs, feels his eyes watering and catches Stiles’ smiling eyes as he sets his mug down.

“Boy, did you become way less cool over the years,” he mutters into his arms and Derek wants to kick him under the table, but that would only prove him right.

After a few seconds of silence, the sheriff finally breaks.

“I’m sorry, I have to ask.” He pins Derek with a look. “Are you really here because you’re rebuilding you family home or should I warn the station to be on high alert? Because I’m sorry, son, but your arrivals are usually…eventful.”

The silence this time is deafening. Derek looks down at his coffee, unable to look at the people that have witnessed firsthand the trouble he usually drags behind him everywhere he goes.

“ _Dad_ ,” Stiles says, sitting properly.

“No, he- You’re right to worry.” Derek looks up, meets the sheriff’s eye. He doesn’t look angry or like he’s about to kick Derek out. He looks honestly curious. “I haven’t been in contact with any supernatural people pretty much since I left. I’ve met some in passing, but that’s it. And I definitely haven’t been dating for a while, so that’s something.”

He tries for a smile, but no one seems inclined to make light of the moment. The fact that he’s able to joke about it is enough to make Derek look down at his coffee again. He expects to feel ashamed. He doesn’t.

“You should stop by at the station, meet some of the new deputies,” the sheriff eventually says. “They’re a bit more knowledgeable than before.”

“Same with the hospital,” Melissa adds. “We have a whole new branch of staff dedicated to _unusual_ treatments.”

“I will,” Derek promises.

“Not before you visit my place of employment, you won’t,” Stiles interjects. “ _My_ store is the heart of the community and we almost never see blood on the floor or criminal activity.”

“I hope you’re joking.” The sheriff points a finger at him. “I have no problem having the place shut down for inspection.”

“Of course I am,” Stiles mumbles into his arms, once again slumping down onto the table.

Two cups of coffee later, Derek is on his way to the door.

“Come by anytime,” Melissa says.

“And remember to stop by the station when you get the chance,” the sheriff adds.

Stiles was left sleeping in the dining room, Nate is a lump under a big blanket on the couch.

“Thank you, I will.”

“And check Stiles’ store for me tomorrow.” Derek stops in the process of stepping into his shoes and turns to the sheriff. “Something’s odd about these two lately and that place is a trouble magnet.”

“Odd how?”

“Not sleeping, barely eating, acting like they’re strangers who don’t even like each other,” Melissa supplies. “It started a couple of months ago. It wasn’t all great before, but you could tell Nate adored Stiles. Lately, I don’t know….”

“Stiles mentioned Nate acting strange,” Derek says.

“Believe me.” The sheriff holds the door open for Derek. “He is.”

-

The store, as it turns out, is nothing out of the ordinary. Well, okay, it apparently specializes in occult texts and, from what Derek understands, most of its clientele is not 100% human, but apart from that, everything seems normal.

Nothing feels off, and despite what Stiles said the day before, the floors and shelves appear free of blood.

The smell of dust, though, is overwhelming.

Derek stops breathing through his nose as soon as he enters, the little bell on the door tinkling above him. There’s no sign on the front window or any other way the place can be recognized as a bookstore from the outside. If someone were to peek inside, they would only see an old counter and, if they squinted, a random selection of used paperbacks scattered around the place.

Derek closes the door behind him and looks around. The floor is an old, battered ceramic that’s chipping at most corners. The bookcases pushed against the walls don’t match, and the shelves are sinking in the middle, even though they are mostly empty. The front window is big, it takes up most of the front wall, and the sunlight streaming through it is speckled with dust motes.

The only thing remotely modern and cared for in the whole room is what Derek assumes is Stiles’ laptop, resting on the counter and looking completely out of place.

Stiles is nowhere to be seen.

Derek steps around the counter and sits down on a rackety chair in front of the computer. He can hear Stiles somewhere further into the store, talking either to himself or into his phone, since his is the only voice Derek can make out without straining. He sounds harried.

“ _There’s no way I can get that done for Friday_.” Silence. “ _It’s two-hundred and fifty pages of a language I don’t speak fluently and there’s so much water damage on the thing that I’m afraid to handle it too much._ ” Longer silence. “ _Yes, I understand that it’s vital for your negotiations but there’s-_ ” Even longer silence. “ _No, I didn’t know that. Yes. No, I don’t want that._ ” A sigh. “ _You will have to sign a release for that. Rush works are likely to- We will not be held responsible- Hello? Asshole._ ”

Derek forces the chair to turn in the direction of Stiles’ approaching footsteps, and it creaks in a way that inspires little confidence. He stands up before the thing can collapse underneath him.

“You’re trespassing,” Stiles tells him. “And you’re early.”

He’s wearing a t-shirt that was probably black at some point in its life, but is now a mousy gray. The logo on the front is faded beyond recognition. Stiles’ arms are long and pale, which makes the thick hair covering them all the more shocking. Derek doesn’t think he’s ever seen Stiles in short sleeves before but he doubts it would have had the same effect on him ten years ago.

“I think that’s the brightest shirt you have ever worn in my presence,” Stiles says and Derek is relieved he’s not the only one staring.

“It’s hot out,” he says, looking down at his white t-shirt. There’s a hole near the hem.

Stiles opens his mouth to reply but shuts it with a click of his teeth before he says a word. “Not going there,” he mumbles to himself as he steps around Derek to get at his laptop.

“Who were you talking to?”

“Asshole client.” Stiles types his password in and opens a spreadsheet. He doesn’t seem to mind when Derek looks over his shoulder. He gets why when he can’t understand a single thing written on it. It’s mostly dates, initials and…zip codes? Strange combinations of letters and numbers, color coded and stretching down in a never ending list.

Stiles clicks on a few sections, writes notes and changes dates, all the while humming under his breath, chapped lower lip caught between his teeth.

“Why is he an asshole?” Derek eventually asks.

“He needs me to do a crazy big job for this Friday. I was supposed to have a month when I agreed.”

“Can’t you refuse?”

Stiles rubs his forehead with the back of his hand as he turns around. “Nope.”

Derek looks back at the screen, “What do you do here, exactly?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Stiles gestures around them, at the airport literature and century-old furniture.

“Should it be?”

“Nope.”

-

“Um, if I take you back there,” Stiles says a few minutes later, standing in front of a door leading to the back of the store. “I’ll have to break a mountain ash circle and uh, close it again when we’re inside it.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? Is that okay?”

“Yeah, it’s okay.”

Stiles side-eyes him as he unlocks the door and steps through it. Derek can feel the energy preventing him from walking inside, like an electric current vibrating in front of him. He waits for Stiles to break the circle, feels the release in the air just as it happens and he steps into a short hallway. A second later, the same energy is pushing at his back, now keeping him from leaving.

“Sorry about this,” Stiles says with a grimace, scratching the back of his neck. His arms are really…something.

“I understand,” Derek assures him, looking over his shoulder to the other end of the hallway. “What’s in here?”

“Oh, this is the real store.” Stiles rounds a corner and they enter a long, narrow room, covered wall to wall in old, leather-bound books. The smell hits Derek like a punch and he has to put a hand over his nose. “Yeah, I hear it’s pretty harsh for you guys back here.”

It’s not only dust. It’s an ancient smell, a mix of the old wood of the shelves and the crumpling paper of the books. The floor in this room is creaking hardwood, the lights long, fluorescent tubes hanging from the ceiling. Derek feels like he’s underground.

“Basically, I’m in the process of digitalizing these old things. As well as whatever my clients bring me. A lot of them are not in English, and the words are faded or half the content has been lost. It’s slow work.”

“Where did you get all this?” Derek asks through his fingers. It’s going to take a few minutes to get used to the smell.

“A lot of it was donated over the years. The Argents sent me a few crates a while back, when Allison was still in France. Some people bring me stuff to convert and then leave the original here, no use carrying it around when you can fit a whole encyclopedia in a thumb drive in your pocket.”

Derek steps closer to one of the shelves, peers at the titles as Stiles hangs back, looking at him.

“We found a few entries on the Hale pack a few years ago,” he says. “I can give the file to you next time you come over.”

Derek turns to look at him, finally lowering his hand and letting it hang loosely at his side.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why all this?” Derek gestures around them and Stiles shrugs, looks away.

“It started as a way to help and it…escalated.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Nah,” Stiles laughs, a short exhale through his nose. “Most of this stuff is harmless. Family trees, some common remedy recipes, a couple of old journals. It’s pretty interesting.”

When Derek doesn’t say anything, he continues. “I majored in Anthropology and studied enough Italian and Spanish to be able to work more or less on my own. Allison and Lydia chip in when I need help with French or Latin.”

“How much of it is already digital?”

“About half of it, I guess.”

Derek takes in the rows and rows of books and can’t help but being impressed.

“And all those books at your place….”

“I work from home a lot,” Stiles says shortly. “I’m here from nine to five, mostly, but I couldn’t meet my deadlines if I didn’t do overtime.”

“What about assistants or other employees?”

“There’s no one available that I trust enough.”

There’s another short moment of silence before Stiles clears his throat, runs his fingers through his hair. “Come on, I’ll show you upstairs.”

There’s another door at the end of the room and, when Stiles opens it, it reveals a set of narrow wooden stairs going up. Derek follows Stiles’ lead, the old smell left behind as they ascend.

The apartment is small and mostly empty.

“This is about it,” Stiles says as they step into the tiny living room. He points to a little hall on the side. “Bedrooms and bathroom are over there, kitchen here.” Derek can see a small kitchen on the other side of a half-open door. He walks to the sole window in the living room and looks out to the street below. Derek can see his car.

“As you can see, my current accommodations are definitely a step up.”

“I like it here,” Derek says without thinking. He can imagine Stiles’ rundown furniture in this place, Nate’s toys scattered around the floor. It feels lived-in.

“I kinda miss it. I’m thinking of turning it into an office.”

“Why don’t you?”

Stiles is silent and Derek turns to see him biting his lip in thought. His arms are crossed over his chest, the fabric of his shirt straining on his shoulders. Derek keeps his eyes on Stiles’ face.

“It’d be too easy to stay,” he says quietly, his voice unsure. The words are not even out of his mouth before he’s blushing, his eyes widening for a fraction of a second before he turns around. His shoulders look bigger with his back to Derek, and Derek is running out of safe places to look. “I’m such a shit.”

Derek is confused at first, leaning against the window as he looks at this older version of Stiles that is taking him an embarrassing amount of time to get used to. And then the words sink in and he pushes away from the window, takes a tentative step forward, making the floorboards creak.

Stiles’ shoulders tense up.

“You showed up at a really shitty time,” he says.

Derek keeps his mouth shut.

“Everything is,” Stiles starts to say but stops himself. Derek walks over to him, reaches out a hand that hovers over Stiles’ shoulder. He can’t make it touch. “Everything is just bad right now.”

There’s so much Derek wants to know. So many questions on the tip of his tongue that he has no right to ask.

With a sigh, he drops his hand. It lands on the warm back of Stiles’ neck. He wants to squeeze his fingers but doesn’t.

“I’m here, if you need help,” he says.

It takes a moment before Stiles looks at him. When he does, he has a pained, half-smile on his face.

“I might take you up on that.”

-

The week passes slowly. Derek stays in the preserve, supervises the setting up of the construction, texts Scott’s pack and talks to Stiles on the phone. He’s usually on speaker so that Nate can talk, too, and every day the boy has a new question.

“Can you lift a car over your head?”

“Can you see in the dark when your eyes go blue?”

“Can you run faster than a _cheetah_? They are the fastest animal in the world.”

“Can you _really_ punch through a wall?”

Derek often wonders if Nate knows that half the people he interacts with daily have the same abilities as him. He grew up surrounded by werewolves and with Stiles as a father, there’s no way he’s not informed about all these things. And yet, he seems to have a fixation with Derek.

Every bit of trivia Derek drops on Nate during their phone calls appear to astound him. On Wednesday, Derek tells him that he can hear music playing a mile away if he wants to and Nate quiets in fascination before he lets out a small _whoa_ that makes Derek fill up with pride, a little.

Stiles is always nearby while Nate asks his questions or tells him what he did at camp that day, and he usually interjects at the thirty minute mark, taking Derek off speaker so he can send Nate to brush his teeth.

Nate usually goes after making sure Stiles will go up to tell him a story soon.

“Does he know about Scott and everyone else?” Derek finally asks on Thursday.

“Yeah, but it’s not the same.”

“How so?”

“It just isn’t.”

That night Stiles calls him again close to midnight. Derek is in bed when his phone rings and he jumps to his feet when he sees Stiles’ picture on the display.

“What’s wrong?” He answers, he’s already putting his pants on.

“No one is hurt,” Stiles says. He sounds calm and Derek relaxes for a second before he realizes that Stiles wouldn’t be calling at this time if everything was okay. “I’m just a fucking idiot and I need your help.”

“What is it? Are you at your house?”

“Yeah.” Derek drops the phone on his bed so he can shrug into a shirt and step into his boots. He can still hear Stiles perfectly. “Look, can you come over and stay with Nate for a few hours? I have this fucking job and I screwed up some of the pages and I need to go into the store. The thing is due tomorrow morning.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Derek says. He’s already walking to his car. His heart is still beating a little fast. He knows everyone is fine, but he stills needs to get to Stiles’ home as soon as possible. He won’t relax until he’s there.

“Don’t kill yourself speeding, everyone’s fine.”

“I’m on my way.” Derek hangs up.

-

Stiles opens the door looking, in all honestly, like shit.

Derek hasn’t seen him since Monday and his insane hair and papery-looking face are a shock. He ushers Derek in impatiently, his eyes a little wild. He looks like’s he’s been living solely on coffee for the last three days.

“Are you okay?” Derek asks as Stiles tugs him into the sitting room.

“Yeah, yeah, just stressed out of my mind. This is the asshole client I was telling you about and it’s my fault, I messed up the formatting and I lost a bunch of-” He cuts himself off, shaking his head. “Not important.”

“Maybe I should drive you,” Derek offers but Stiles shakes his head again.

“Nate might wake up, someone has to be here.”

“You shouldn’t-”

“I’m fine, Derek. Just, please. Stay for a while.”

Stiles looks at him, pleading with his eyes. Derek doesn’t want to agree, doesn’t want to send Stiles off in the state he’s in. But he’s not seventeen and Derek has no authority over him. He nods.

Stiles’ shoulders sag in relief before he gives Derek the ghost of a smile.

“It’ll be okay.”

“What if Nate wakes up?”

“He’ll be thrilled to see you.”

“Call me when you get there.” Stiles gives him a look. Derek guesses it’s meant to be mocking, but it’s a touch too soft to pull it off.

“Sure thing, Dad.”

Derek refrains from pointing out that he’s not the dad in the room. In fact, the dad in the room is acting like a brat.

He sees Stiles off from the porch and doesn’t go inside until the car lights disappear around a corner. Back in the sitting room, he places his phone on the coffee table and paces. He can hear Nate sleeping upstairs. The fridge running in the kitchen, a faucet leaking. A window must be open somewhere in the house because a door is creaking slowly, as if a breeze is pushing it back and forth on its hinges.

Twenty minutes later he gets a text from Stiles telling him he’s at the store. There’s even a picture attached for good measure. Derek doesn’t reply, just drops the phone back on the table and falls onto the couch closest to him.

He didn’t see this room the last time he was here. It’s eclectic, so say the least. Derek guesses the house came furnished and Stiles just added his random selection of furniture to it. The couch Derek is sitting on is older than the rest, and smells of people and something sugary and sweet. The coffee table is modern and asymmetrical and is covered in crayon scratches.

Derek wonders how long Stiles is going to take. He leans backwards, his back sliding down a little against the cushions, and closes his eyes.

Something wakes him up some time later. He’s not sure what’s wrong at first. The house is quiet and dark but the hairs on the back on his neck stand up and his ears are prickling.

He sits up and looks around, letting out a sound of relief when he sees Nate standing under the wide threshold, looking at him.

“Nate, hey. Are you okay?”

Nate is quiet, small in his mismatched pajamas. His hair is sticking up on one side, a pillow crease runs from his forehead to his cheek. Derek smells sweat on him all the way from across the room.

“Nate-”

“Where’s my dad,” he says, tone so flat it doesn’t even sound like a question. His voice is hoarse with sleep.

“He had to go to work,” Derek explains as gently as he can, standing up. Nate takes a step back. “He’ll be back soon.”

Derek can hear the way Nate’s heart picks up, how shallow his breathing becomes before he takes in a shuddering breath. “Where’s my dad.”

His voice is louder and higher, bordering on panic and Derek starts walking towards him but stops when Nate cowers away.

“Nate, do you know who I am?”

Nate nods, his chin trembling. “Where-” He chokes on a sob that makes Derek’s chest tighten.

“He’s at work, he’s coming back soon.”

“He said,” Nate tries. “He said-”

Derek leans down to grab his phone and in the same instant Nate darts away. He runs towards the front door, bare feet slapping on the floor and Derek curses as he chases after him.

Nate practically leaps at the door, both hands taking hold of the handle and yanking. The door doesn’t budge, the lock secure in place. Panting, he rattles it, twists it, hangs from it in his desperation to get out.

Derek doesn’t dare approach, instead gripping the phone in his hand, undecided about calling Stiles. Then Nate starts kicking the door, bare toes connecting with hard wood as he lets out a high whine, and Derek has to grab him before he breaks a foot.

As soon as his hands are under Nate’s arms, he’s screaming. Derek lifts him up easily, but he’s struggling so much that he’s afraid he’ll drop him. He brings Nate against him to turn him around, squirming and wailing, and manages to maneuver him so they are facing each other.

Nate’s face is splotchy and red, tears and snot running down his chin as he howls, kicking out. One of his feet catches Derek close to the groin, which makes him tighten his grip. Nate stops screaming instantly, instead going completely still before another round of sobs rakes out of him, his chest heaving.

“Nate,” Derek says. Nate just cries, making weak attempts to get back to the door. Derek pulls him to his chest instead of holding him by the armpits. He slides his arm under Nate’s thighs and walks him back to the sitting room. Nate’s wet face is pressed against Derek’s neck as he sits on the couch again, now unsure of what to do.

“Nate,” he tries again. “Your dad called me because he had to run to work. He’s on his way back.”

Nate shakes his head against Derek, crying silently, fists clenched on Derek’s shirt. His small shoulders are shaking so much that Derek wraps his other arm around them, smoothing his hand up and down Nate’s back.

“It’s okay,” he says, awkward and dubious. Nate hiccups. “Did you hurt your feet?”

“My dad.” Nate’s breathing picks up again. “He said he wasn’t leaving.”

“He didn’t. He’s on his way back.”

“He didn’t say goodbye,” Nate whines, crying again. “He didn’t-” He breaks off, his sobs muffled by Derek’s shirt.

They stay like that for a long time. Derek doesn’t stop holding Nate and Nate doesn’t stop shaking. Eventually, he falls silent and his heart rate slows down. Derek keeps the hand on his back moving, running up and down, trying to project calmness.

“What are the stories you like?” He asks once Nate has quieted down enough. The little boy turns his head so that his cheek, instead of his nose, is pressed against Derek’s breastbone. He sniffs.

“Dad’s stories.”

“What’re they about?”

“About Scott and Derek and Lydia and everyone.”

Derek looks down at Nate. “What kind of stories?”

“About,” Nate takes an unsteady breath, as if he’s about to break down again. His eyes are brimming with unshed tears. “About Boyd and Erica in the place where they couldn’t get out and Derek punched the wall to let them out.

“And Isaac being really angry and Derek stopping him from hurting Stiles. And Allison shooting arrows and Scott doesn’t know how to howl and all the bad guys and Derek helps them beat them.”

He talks about Derek as a character in the story, as if right now that Derek and the one holding him are not the same person.

“Those are good stories,” Derek says after a moment. Nate makes a noise, another whine as he hides his face again. “Do you know about the lizard?”

“Jackson was in a bad mood and he turned into a lizard,” Nate mumbles.

“And what about the time at the pool? Do you know that story?”

Nate is still, thinking before he shakes his head. So Derek leans back against the couch and pats Nate’s hair as he talks. He has no experience telling stories, but he thinks the sound of his voice alone will be enough.

“The lizard had the power to freeze people if he touched them. One day, I…Derek was slow and he was frozen and fell into a big swimming pool. Stiles was there, and he jumped after Derek. Because Derek was frozen and he couldn’t swim. The lizard was afraid of water because…he didn’t like to take baths so he didn’t go inside. So for a long, long time, Stiles held Derek in the pool so he wouldn’t drown. They stayed for a lot of hours, and Stiles was very tired because Derek was heavy, but he didn’t let him go, even when Derek thought he would.”

“But Stiles doesn’t have super powers,” Nate slurs, half asleep already.

“Stiles didn’t need super powers to save his friends. He was very brave.”

Nate brings a hand up to his own ear, absently rubbing it as his eyelids drop. “And then what happened?”

“Scott arrived and shooed the lizard away right on time.”

“So who saved you?”

“I guess Stiles saved m-- Derek. First.”

The words sink in a moment later. He looks down and finds Nate’s eyes closed, tear tracks drying on his cheeks. Derek doesn’t dare to move. He realizes he doesn’t have his phone anymore, that he must have dropped it when he picked Nate up.

Slowly, he lowers his head against the headrest and closes his eyes. He’s going to stay like this until Stiles comes back, he doesn’t want to risk trying to put Nate to bed and waking him up. He wonders if this is a common occurrence but he doesn’t think so – Stiles would have mentioned it.

Maybe Nate was sleepwalking…but no, he had been alert. He hadn’t been scared of Derek, he had been scared of the idea of Stiles leaving him behind.

Somewhere in the house, a door is still creaking.

Derek rests a hand on top of Nate’s head and waits.

-

He wakes up to the sound of Stiles’ car pulling into the driveway, but he doesn’t open his eyes. He is stretched out along the couch, Nate half on top of him and half trapped between him and the back of the couch. One of his hands is on Derek’s ear. Derek didn’t know before tonight that six year-olds could move this much in their sleep.

Unmoving, he listens as Stiles unlocks the front door and kicks off his shoes. Derek is not sure what time it is, but he’s almost certain the sun is up. Stiles’ footsteps draw closer, pausing close to the couch.

“This is not fair,” he mutters, dropping something on the coffee table. He sounds exhausted. Derek still doesn’t open his eyes and Nate barely even stirs.

A second later Stiles sighs as he (assuming by the amount of noise) throws himself onto another one of the couches. It isn’t long before he’s snoring, somewhere by Derek’s feet.

-

The next time he wakes up is because someone steps on his stomach. He groans as Nate climbs over him to get up. Without a word, he grabs him and lifts him to safely deposit him on the floor, for which he receives a sleepy smile. Derek watches as Nate climbs onto the couch Stiles is currently sprawled on, sitting with his legs spread wide open and stretched on the floor in front of him, his arms limp at his sides, his head thrown back.

He doesn’t look asleep, he looks like he passed out.

Nate sits next to Stiles and takes one of his hands, burrowing into his side and closing his eyes.

Derek is wide awake.

He sits up, wincing. Sometimes, very rarely and usually for a couple of seconds before his metabolism kicks in, he feels his age. His neck is stiff and his shoulders are sore. The fabric on the front of his shirt is stiff in patches where Nate cried against him last night.

He looks at them again.

Nate looks very small and almost as tired as Stiles, both kind of turned towards each other in what looks like incredibly uncomfortable positions to sleep in.

Derek finds himself smiling before he turns in search of a bathroom.

He ends up upstairs after wandering through a few mostly-empty rooms on the ground floor. Stiles was right when he said he had enough space for plenty of guests, but Derek doesn’t really understand what he’s planning on doing with so many rooms.

Once on the second floor landing, he turns right and walks to the last door on a wide hallway. He looks into the rooms he’s passing. There’s an office, with a desk and more piles of books and unopened boxes. There’s Stiles’ room, an unmade double bed and a dresser is all Derek can see as he walks past it. He stops just as he crosses the last door on the left.

With a frown, he takes a step backwards and looks inside.

The room is dark, the drapes closed so tightly not even a sliver of sun is slipping through, but there’s enough light coming in from the hallway that Derek should be able to see.

He can’t.

He shifts partially, making his eyes flash so that they can adjust better, but he can only make out a darker area in a corner, probably a dresser. He presses a palm on the door to push it open and finds it blocked by something on the other side. He leans into it and it creaks as it slowly budges.

The room remains dark.

With his frown deepening at the strain on his eyes, he steps forward, intent on finding a light switch, only to be violently pushed back and almost tumbling to the floor in surprise.

He straightens with a grunt, clutching at his chest. His entire front feels cold, his fingertips are a little numb. It dawns on him that this must be Nate’s bedroom, and just as the store, Stiles must have it under strict protection.

Rubbing at his breastbone, Derek goes to the bathroom.

He catches his face in the mirror as he’s looking for mouthwash to borrow. His hair is overgrown and his beard is an inch or two away from officially looking like a bird’s nest. He touches a hand to his face. There was a time when he cared what he looked like. In the last couple of months, though, Derek can’t seem to be able to muster up the will to get a haircut or new clothes that are not fraying at the edges. He trims his beard when it gets obnoxious and doesn’t wear shirts with visible stains on them, but that’s as far as he goes.

He’s gotten used to seeing himself like this, to feeling like he doesn’t need to make an impression, but he wonders what it’s like for everyone else to see him again. He’s still taken aback every time he sees Stiles, grown up and scruffy, not eating properly or sleeping enough, just like the old days. Except now Derek wants to grab Stiles and shake him when he sees the way his pants hang from his hips. He wants to force him to sleep for an entire day and eat so much food that he won’t be able to get up.

Being away so long messed up Derek’s instincts – at the first sign of trust he’s already feeling way too protective.

He’s washing his face a couple of minutes later when he hears movement downstairs. He stills, hands half way to his face, listening. Someone is up and already in the kitchen.

When Derek returns downstairs, he finds Nate standing on his little stool, arranging a bunch of ingredients on the counter. He turns when he hears Derek enter, his eyes red rimmed and puffy, his face solemn.

“Good morning,” Derek says, walking over.

“Hello,” Nate mumbles, turning back to his task.

“Are you making breakfast?”

“I want to make pancakes.” He looks at the box of pancake mix in his hands. “But I’m not allowed to use the stove.”

“You want me to help?”

With his chin tucked to his chest and his eyes downcast, Nate nods. He’s quiet while Derek mixes the batter and preheats the pan, just looking at him work.

When Derek pours the first two helpings in, Nate slips out of the stool and busies himself setting the table. Derek watches him out of the corner of his eye, making sure he’s not about to trip over the books on the floor.

He’s almost done cooking when he hears Stiles stirring in the sitting room. Nate has just climbed onto the counter behind Derek to wait just as Stiles clears his throat from the door.

“What’s going on?” He asks, voice hoarse.

“Pancakes,” Nate says, which is apparently explanation enough, since Stiles doesn’t ask anything else.

Derek turns off the stove as the last pancake is done, and carries the pile of them to the table. He hears Nate dropping to the floor and following. Stiles takes a moment longer before he joins them.

“This one is Nate’s.” Derek places the pancake on the top of the pile in Nate’s plate.

“What’s it supposed to be?” Stiles asks, rubbing two fingers above his left eye.

“It’s a wolf,” Nate says, pleased as he pours half a bottle of maple syrup onto it.

Stiles looks like he wants to protest, so Derek takes the bottle from him. He wants to avoid a confrontation between them today. Nate pays him no attention as he digs in.

“What are we sorry for?” Stiles asks as Derek is putting two of the thickest pancakes into his plate, handing him the maple syrup.

“What?” He asks, confused.

Stiles gestures at the table. “Apology pancakes.”

Derek looks at Nate, whose shoulders are up to his ears as he munches on his food.

“Nate?”

They both watch Nate swallow, eyes trained on his plate. “Dad is sorry he left yesterday,” he says.

Stiles looks stricken.

“I am, buddy,” he says softly.

“And I’m sorry I kicked Derek,” Nate finishes.

This time Stiles’ expression is a lot more amused.

“You kicked Derek?” He tries to sound reproachful but misses the mark completely, one corner of his mouth going up as he glances over at Derek.

“But I’m sorry,” Nate insists.

“It’s okay, Nate. You didn’t mean to.” Derek tells him.

“And what is Derek sorry for?” Stiles asks, smiling now. He lifts his eyebrows at Derek, waiting.

“I-”

“Derek’s sorry he didn’t do the voices,” Nate beats him to it, talking around a mouthful of mostly maple syrup.

“The voices,” Stiles repeats, frowning.

“For the story.”

“Derek told you a story.”

Nate nods.

Stiles looks completely torn. He’s staring at Nate like he can’t believe what he’s hearing, the small smile slipping from his face, his fork lowering away from his mouth. For some reason, Derek feels ashamed.

“What about?” Stiles asks, his voice catching a little. Derek looks away.

Nate is suddenly alert. “Jackson froze Derek and he fell in the pool and Stiles saved him because he couldn’t swim and Jackson didn’t like to take baths.”

“That’s,” Stiles starts. “That’s a cool story.”

“And Stiles didn’t need superpowers,” Nate adds, as if agreeing.

“I bet he could use a few.”

Nate shakes his head. “No, he didn’t! He really didn’t have superpowers.”

“I know, bud. That’s great.” Stiles smiles, voice softening. Derek eats his pancake in silence.

Later, when everyone (even Stiles) has had second helpings, Derek offers to make coffee.

“Can I have some?” Nate asks.

“Nope,” Derek says, so Stiles doesn’t have to.

“But everyone in my class drinks coffee!”

“That can’t be, everybody knows that little kids who drink coffee stay short forever.”

Nate’s eyes widen as Stiles laughs under his breath.

“Is that true?”

“It’s what my mother told me, and she never lied.”

Nate sits backs on his chair, quiet as he ponders this new information. Derek can feel Stiles’ eyes on him, but he doesn’t turn around. Instead he looks up at the clock on the wall over his head. It’s half-past nine in the morning.

“Are you taking the day off today?” He asks as he sets up the coffee machine.

“Heck yes, I’m not stepping into that place until Monday.” Stiles sounds as if he’s stretching. “What about you, bud? Feel like going to camp?”

“Boyd is gonna teach us about beetles today.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

The bus picks Nate up at ten, and Stiles sees him off from the door, his coffee mug clutched in his hand as Nate hurries away, backpack bouncing behind him. There wasn’t a hug or a kiss goodbye, just a wave to Derek as Stiles wished Nate a good day. Derek watched from the sitting room, his own coffee cooling on the table.

When Stiles joins him, he sits on a different couch, sighing as he relaxes.

“How was it last night?” He asks after a couple of seconds. He sounds like he knows the answer.

“Does he always freak out like that?”

Stiles sighs again, sets his cup on the table next to Derek’s. “Sometimes, yeah. I thought he wouldn’t. With you. He likes you.”

“He wanted you to be here,” Derek argues instead of saying that Nate likes Stiles, too. “He almost ran out the door.”

Stiles buries his face in his hands, groaning. “I’m sorry.” It’s muffled and low, but Derek makes it out anyway. “I needed-- If he woke up while I was working here, I wouldn’t’ve been able to finish on time.”

Derek doesn’t reply.

“You told him a story,” Stiles speaks up some time later.

“He was upset.”

“You…you’re always the hero in my stories, you know.”

Derek figured as much, but hearing Stiles say it out loud makes him realize how strange that is.

“Why?”

Stiles shrugs. “You weren’t here, it was easy. He loves those stories.”

Derek nods. Stiles lowers his hands, finally, and looks him in the eye.

“I actually sort of want to kiss you.”

Derek knows. He can smell it and he can hear Stiles’ heart thumping against his chest.

“I never wanted to kiss you before.” Stiles goes on. “Well, not really. Not outside fantasy. But you’re nice to my kid and you made me coffee and you look like shit. It’s a dangerous combination.”

“I look like shit?” is all Derek can think to ask.

Stiles shrugs. “It’s okay, I do, too.”

They sit quietly after that, each finishing their coffee, sitting in separate couches. The tension is practically palpable and Stiles’ heart just keeps on thudding – the sounds fills the entire room.

Derek wants to say something, but somehow the atmosphere feels fragile.

“Do you,” Stiles starts, a hand going to the back of his own neck, his eyes darting somewhere around Derek’s shoulder. “Would you, I mean, do you maybe want to go upstairs? With me? I—Fuck, I haven’t done this in way too long.” He groans, squeezing his eyes shut, color rising on his cheeks.

Derek’s grip on his cup is dangerously tight – he sets it on the table again before he makes a mess.

He shouldn’t. He shouldn’t because Stiles has a kid and Derek doesn’t even know who Nate’s mother is. He shouldn’t because Stiles is sleep deprived and possibly not thinking straight and Derek is not much different. He shouldn’t because every time he gets involved with someone bad things happen and he can’t afford to fuck up Stiles’ life, on top of everything else.

But he wants to. He wants to so much it must show on his face, because when Stiles opens his eyes after a long silence and looks at him, he half smiles and stands up.

Derek follows him out of the sitting room and up the stairs. He follows Stiles down the hallway and into his room, where the unmade bed feels like an ominous being waiting for them.

They stand facing each other just inside the closed door. Derek’s hands are clenched at his sides. He doesn’t know what he’s doing and yet he finds himself taking a step forward. He stops when he sees Stiles tense up, before he drops his shoulders and lets out a laugh.

“Sorry,” he says. “Keep going.”

Derek’s movements are stilted as he reaches out and places a hand on the side of Stiles’ face, feeling awkward. But Stiles tilts his head against Derek’s touch, rubs his scratchy cheek against Derek’s palm.

“How long?” Derek asks, voice quiet. Stiles meets his eyes, hooded and piercing. His own hands fall on Derek’s hips, clutching at his shirt.

“Just very long.”

“Why?”

“Adult life is complicated.” Stiles sighs, pressing his mouth against Derek’s hand as his eyes fall shut.

Okay.

When they kiss, Stiles’ lips are dry and chapped. Derek licks them before Stiles opens his mouth for him, and then everything gets wetter. Stiles tastes like coffee. He huddles against Derek’s chest as if he’s cold, his hands trapped between them as Derek’s frame his face and keep him in still.

Derek can do this. They both need it – it doesn’t have to be…anything else.

They hardly make any sound as they kiss. Stiles’ breathing is labored and their chins make raspy noises as they rub together. Derek moves his hands up to Stiles’ limp hair, digging his fingers into it. Stiles groans a little. Somehow he manages to slide his fingers up Derek’s shirt, his cold palms pressing against Derek’s taut stomach, making him shudder and pull back.

Stiles looks at him as his hands ride up, short nails scratching at Derek’s chest and catching in the coarse hair there. His lips are wet and red and Derek leans back in, swiping his tongue into Stiles’ mouth at once.

He doesn’t think as he pushes Stiles backwards and onto the bed.

Derek stretches on top of him, arranging himself between Stiles’ legs. His fingers remain in Stiles’ hair while Stiles’ clutch at his shoulders, slide down his sides and around Derek’s back to drop to the waistband of his jeans. Derek’s breathing stutters as he feels the tips of Stiles’ fingers dipping into his underwear.

He sneaks one of his hands between them, palms Stiles through his sweatpants and lets him lift his hips, rub himself against Derek’s fingers.

Stiles breaks the kiss to look down at where Derek is barely squeezing, his own fingers daring further into Derek’s pants until he’s got two handfuls of Derek’s ass.

They are quiet, the house and everything around them is quiet. The bed doesn’t make a noise of protest as they move around on it, trying to find a better angle for Derek to nudge his hips down. Slowly, dragging his body up and down until Stiles tightens his grip and pushes, huffing against the side of Derek’s neck.

His knees go up as he plants his bare feet on the mattress on either side of Derek, so he has better leverage to meet Derek’s movements. By now they’re both hard, Stiles obvious in his thin sweats while Derek is starting to hurt – he needs to get out of his jeans.

As if reading his mind, Stiles takes his hands away from Derek’s ass and quickly unzips him, pushing his pants out of the way as far as he can while keeping his back flat on the mattress. Derek sighs in relief, kisses Stiles again as he picks up the pace.

He feels Stiles’ fingers bumping into his and lets him take himself out of his sweatpants, helps him close their hands around both of them, the heel of Stiles’ hand bumping into the head of Derek’s dick.

He swears quietly against Stiles’ open mouth and looks down at where they’re pressed together inside their hands, dark red and leaking. He watches their erections appear and disappear between them.

Derek pushes down, holds his weight on his elbow as he brings his free hand up to Stiles’ face without looking. He runs his fingers through Stiles’ hair, pushing it back and away from his forehead as he tightens his grip and pulls slightly. Stiles pants above him, neck straining backwards when he tenses, groans as he comes.

Derek watches the ropes of come hitting both their clothed stomachs, rubs himself faster, his hand slick, pulling, and he’s coming not two seconds later with a gasp. He closes his mouth on Stiles’ shoulder, rides his orgasm out as Stiles’ heartbeat slows.

Derek’s fingers feel numb as he releases Stiles’ hair and pats it back against his head, both their chests heaving. He rolls away, landing next to Stiles with a grimace as he unsticks his other hand from their softening dicks.

Stiles groans, one of his arms now trapped under Derek.

“That was…fast,” he says, making Derek snort. “I feel sixteen all over again.”

“This definitely wouldn’t have happened when you were sixteen.”

“It did in my head.”

Derek turns to look at his flushed profile. “You hated me when you were sixteen.”

“First of all,” Stiles sighs, fidgeting as he tucks himself back in one-handed. “I didn’t hate you.”

Derek hums and lifts his pants back where they belong, but he feels too gross to zip back up. Stiles takes the chance to free his arm from underneath him.

“And second of all, even if I did, I wasn’t blind.”

  
The room is bathed in light from the window, and Derek can see the sweat shining high on Stiles’ forehead, the fading red splotches on his cheeks. His eyelashes are wet and stuck together and look longer than Derek knows they are.

Derek licks his lips.

“Have you—before…with another man?”

Stiles gives him a sideways look. “ _Yes_ , Derek.” His tone is condescending. “Don’t worry, I’m not going into shock because you came on me.”

Derek doesn’t say anything, busies himself wiping his fingers clean with his shirt.

“You?” Stiles asks a moment later, looking up at the ceiling.

Derek says, “Yes,” and leaves it at that.

“You can take a shower if you want, I’ll lend you some clothes.”

Stiles grunts as he gets up and starts rummaging in his dresser. Derek stands behind him, his pants undone. He’s ushered to the bathroom when Stiles finds a shirt for him. Later, with his hair still wet, Stiles invites him to leave, claiming he’s going to spend the day tidying up. He thanks him, doesn’t clarify what for, and practically closes the door in his face.

Derek drives back to the preserve in a daze, wondering if he imagined Stiles’ reluctance before kicking him out, or if it’s only wishful thinking on his part.

His lips are still tender when he arrives at the cabin. He looks around him once inside, at the clutter and the silence and decides that fuck it, he’s going to spend the afternoon sleeping. Safely away from his thoughts and the emptiness in his chest.

-

He doesn’t expect to hear from Stiles for a while, but his name flashes on Derek’s phone as it rings the following day.

He stares down at it for a moment, wondering what he’s going to say if this is some sort of… of booty call. Part of him (one specific part) would like to agree, while the rest of him knows that it would mean trouble. That he would come to regret it.

He picks up right before the call goes to voicemail.

“Hello…?”

“Don’t sound so terrified,” Stiles’ voice says in his ear. “You can always not pick up.”

“I didn’t-- What’s up?”

Stiles scoffs. “Nate wants to talk to you about something, can you give him five?”

“Of course,” Derek says at once, setting the vegetables he was chopping on the counter. He waits as Stiles passes the phone over.

“Hello,” Nate says. He sounds grumpy.

“Hi, Nate.” Derek leans back against the counter, tries to listen to the background noises on Nate’s side. “How are you, buddy?”

“I’m bored,” Nate replies. “Dad has to work and I’m not allowed to watch TV.”

“The day’s too nice to watch TV inside,” Derek supplies and Nate huffs.

“That’s what Dad said.”

“He’s smart sometimes.” That makes Nate laugh a little and Derek feels only slightly bad about it. “What about Lucy? Can you visit her?”

“Dad said she went to her grandma’s house.”

“I see, that’s too bad.”

“Can you come over?” Nate asks, his tone pleading. “I didn’t show you my Legos yet.”

Derek looks around him. He needs to be around the construction site today, has to supervise a material delivery and update the contractor on some changes he decided on the night before. He was just finishing lunch before heading out when Stiles called.

“Today is not very good,” he says, as softly as he can. He swears he can feel Nate’s mood darkening through the phone.

“Why?”

“I’m building a house, remember?”

Nate is quiet for a second. “Can I help you?”

“Help me build a house?”

“I build houses with my Lego all the time, Dad knows!” Nate sounds excited all of a sudden and then he’s yelling away from the phone. “Dad! Tell Derek I know how to build houses!”

“ _What_?” He hears Stiles yell back. Then Nate’s running with the phone to another room, Derek listens to his footsteps echoing around him. “What about houses?”

“Tell Derek I can help him build his house, I know how.”

“Wait, I can’t- Okay, hold it to my ear. There.” There’s a rustle, something scraping against the floor and then Stiles’ voice, loud and clear. “What’s this about houses?”

“You’re working from home today?” Derek asks.

“Yeah, I have some editing to finish.”

“What do you need? Your computer? That’s it?”

“Well, yeah, I guess. Everything’s already digital,” Stiles trails off. “Why?”

“You could come over, bring what you need to work with. I can walk Nate around the preserve.” Stiles is quiet and Derek wonders if he needs space. If he doesn’t want to see Derek again for a while, if it’s better to acknowledge what they did and let it rest, let it go cold and disappear with time.

But Derek is lonely.

And he knows Stiles is too because, why call him? Why not his father, or Scott?

“You can have lunch here,” he offers, tentative.

“I…that actually sounds good.” Stiles sighs and there’s another rustle as (Derek assumes) he takes the phone from Nate. “We’re both getting cabin fever in here. Nate refuses to play in the backyard.”

“There’s bees!” Nate yells somewhere in the background.

“Do you need to go online?” Derek asks. “I don’t really get a signal out here.”

“No, I have everything, I,” he pauses, sighs again. “Thanks, we’ll be there as soon as we change.”

“Call me from the highway, I’ll pick you up at the entrance.”


	2. 2/2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the wonderful comments, guys! I hope I don't disappoint. 
> 
> -

Derek’s a little worried, since all he has to eat are vegetables, but Nate eats them up without a word of complaint. He’s clearly excited to be out, bouncing on his chair as he chews on his food and looks around.

“It looks like our old house,” he says, spitting bits of tomato onto the table. Stiles cleans it up with a paper napkin.

The cabin is probably smaller than Stiles’ old apartment, with only one bedroom and an integrated living room/kitchen. But it does have the same sense of being lived in, unlike their current house.

Stiles looks relaxed, the tension that Derek got used to seeing on his shoulders gone as he eats his salad while keeping an eye on Nate.

“I still don’t know why I didn’t know about this place,” he says a bit later, after Nate is allowed to get up and explore around the small place.

“You didn’t exactly ask where I was living back then.”

“Yeah, but we spent so much time running around here you’d think we’d have bumped into it at some point.”

“Someone definitely found it at some point.” Derek starts to reluctantly pile their dishes in front of him. He doesn’t want to leave, he likes to be able to talk without feeling like he’s stepping around something he’s not allowed to mention. Stiles asking about him is safe, there’s little Stiles doesn’t already know.

“You mean someone was living here when you came back?”

“No, but someone spent their weekends here, at least. I guess they stopped when they realized it wasn’t empty anymore.”

“What about when you move to the new place?” He follows Derek to the sink and pushes him away when Derek is rolling up his sleeves. Derek starts to protest, but a look from Stiles stops him. “Are you going to let strangers use this place as some sort of…”

He looks over at Nate, who is distracted going through a bunch of old magazines shoved into the bottom shelf of a bookcase.

“You know.” He waggles his eyebrows and Derek refuses to be amused. There’s just something funny about Stiles censoring himself, especially because Nate is paying no attention to them.

“I’m pretty sure it was just the security guys coming over here to drink and pass out for the night.”

Stiles’ soapy hands move expertly over the dishes, leaving everything clean and ready to be put away in no time as Derek watches. There’s a window just above the sink, and the sunlight coming through it has Stiles squinting down at the dishcloth he’s using to dry himself. Derek wants to step closer, has the urge to lift his hand up and run his fingers down the side of Stiles’ neck and into his collar, curl his arm around his shoulders.

He stands to the side, stiff and too-aware of his arms crossed over his chest.

Stiles glances at him as if he knows what he’s thinking and sighs, hangs the dishcloth back on a cupboard handle.

“I thought you had to go,” he says, leaning his hip against the counter to face Derek properly. Looking at him like that, it takes all of Derek’s willpower not to step right into Stiles’ space, press their fronts together from thigh to chest and breathe the same air just for a moment.

Instead, he steps back. He turns towards Nate, who is already looking at him, as if waiting for his signal to run out the door. Derek smiles at him and Nate grins, jumps to his feet and hurries to put his shoes on.

“Will it be okay?” Derek asks quietly, still turned towards the door.

“Nate? He’ll be fine,” Stiles replies, voice just as hushed. “You’ll be there.”

Derek caves and turns his head towards him, but Stiles is already making his way back to the table, preparing his laptop and getting his notes out of the bag he brought.

“Derek!” Nate calls, bouncing in place by the door. “Are we going?”

“We’re going.”

-

It’s not a short walk for a six year-old, but Nate doesn’t complain. He keeps his little hand firmly tucked into Derek’s and talks most of the way. He tells Derek about a show he likes on TV and about his friends at day camp. He asks Derek if he’s good at climbing trees and if he can rip one out of the ground with his hands.

“I’ve never tried,” he says and sees Nate’s eyes light up. “And we’re not trying today. We’re supposed to take care of trees.”

“We can plant it again after,” Nate insists.

“Trees don’t work like that.”

Nate is quiet for a moment before he speaks again. “If someone took out your arm, would it grow again?” He asks and Derek draws to a halt, slightly disturbed by the question.

But when he looks down Nate is gazing up at him, eyes curious and expression open and he remembers this is _Stiles’_ kid.

“No,” he says, firm and clear, not wanting Nate to propose an experiment. “No, it wouldn’t.”

“But you can’t get hurt,” Nate goes on. They’re standing under the shade of a tall tree. Nate’s hand is sweaty inside Derek’s, but the boy hasn’t let go once. Derek figures Stiles probably instructed Nate not to let go of him while they’re in the woods and something twists in his chest at Nate’s obedience. At his trust.

“I can get hurt,” he says and crouches down to Nate’s level. “I can heal faster the most people, but it still hurts a lot.”

“My dad hurt his hand once and he had to go to the hospital. He cried.”

“I would have cried, too, if I hurt myself bad enough I had to see a doctor. Wouldn’t you?”

Nate nods, cautious, frowning a little.

“Your dad used to get hurt a lot,” Derek says, thinking of Stiles’ bruised face and split knuckles, of his arms slipping away from Derek as they both sank to the bottom of the pool. Of Stiles’ heartbeat stuttering, slowing and fading. Of his face like a mask hiding a demon that was killing him inside-out. “Because he didn’t realize he couldn’t heal like I could.”

“Because he doesn’t have superpowers,” Nate says.

“He doesn’t need them.”

“If he had superpowers, _I_ would have superpowers. Like Lucy.”

“You don’t need superpowers.” Derek brushes his hand over Nate’s short hair, making him drop his head and smile as if against his will. “Superpowers are overrated.”

If Laura could hear him, he thinks, she would fall over from shock.

“What’s overrated mean?”

“People think they’re so much better than they are.”

Nate looks unconvinced.

“If it weren’t for Stiles and Allison, how would Derek and the others have won so many fights?”

Nate purses his lips. “Derek won a lot of fights.”

“He lost a lot of fights, too.”

“He always wins in Dad’s stories.”

“He’s very strong and he can break walls with his hands, but Stiles comes up with the plans. And Allison helps with her arrows. And Scott’s mom and Stiles’ dad keep everyone safe. Does he tell you that in his stories?”

“Grandpa won’t show me his gun and Dad says that I can’t shoot arrows until I’m sixteen.” Nate looks away. “He doesn’t like me sometimes.”

Derek is confused for a moment. He frowns as Nate refuses to meet his eye.

“Who doesn’t like you?”

But Nate is apparently done with the conversation, and he pretends he doesn’t hear Derek. He looks down at his shoes until Derek sighs and stands up again.

“Come on, we’re almost there,” he says and they keep walking.

-

The construction site doesn’t look like much yet, but Nate is intrigued by everything. He pulls Derek along to look at the stacks of cement bags and he jumps over the thin lines of wire marking the perimeter, asking Derek which area is going to be the kitchen and which ones the bedrooms. He lies on the ground inside one of the squares and pretends he’s inside the house already, looking around him as he imagines walls and furniture surrounding him.

Derek keeps an eye on him as he talks with the contractor in charge, he points at the small changes he made on the blueprints and lets the man handle the material delivery while Derek goes back to Nate, who is now sitting cross-legged in the “kitchen”.

“What d’you think?” He asks him, crouching in front of him. “Like it?”

“I’ll like it more when it’s finished.” Nate picks at a tear on his jeans. “Can I come over when it’s ready?”

“Of course,” Derek says. “You can bring your dad and cook us macaroni and cheese.”

Nate’s cheeks go a little pink and he smiles down at his lap.

“We can invite Lucy, too. And your grandpa and Melissa.”

“And Scott? And Lydia and Allison?”

“Everyone who wants to come,” Derek tells him and can’t help but feel a flutter of hope in his chest. He didn’t expect this when he returned to Beacon Hills. He didn’t expect Scott’s pack to welcome him back the way they did, didn’t think he would ever willingly invite everyone back into his life and that they would be happy to be invited.

Because Derek knows he only has to ask and they’ll come into his new house and include him in their own gatherings.

Beacon Hills is not the same as it was. _Derek_ is not the same as he was.

-

When the cabin comes into view, Nate is sitting on his shoulders, fast asleep and drooling a little on the top of Derek’s head. Derek is holding onto Nate’s limp arms, neck stiff and walk careful, trying to avoid jostling him awake.

Stiles has dragged one of the kitchen chairs outside, and he’s sitting out in the small porch, his computer on his lap.

He looks up as Derek nears and smiles at the sight of Nate.

“I guess the walk was too much after all?” He asks softly, knowing Derek can hear him even a few feet away. He sets his laptop on the chair as he gets up and stretches. Derek watches him lift his elbows up to his ears and sees his t-shirt ride up, his stomach muscles flat and in full display. He can hear Stiles’ spine pop. “Was he good?”

“Yeah,” Derek clears his throat, ignores Stiles’ knowing smile. “He was great.”

Stiles makes grabby hands up at Nate and Derek gently dislodges him from his neck and passes him over. He hardly stirs, and settles quickly against Stiles’ chest, his chin on Stiles’ shoulder, his thin legs around Stiles’ waist.

Stiles lets out a breath, pressing his cheek against Nate’s head for a moment.

“How’d he sleep last night?” Derek asks and Stiles sighs, adjusts his grip on Nate as he turns back into the cabin. Derek follows, taking the computer with him.

“He woke up around three, wouldn’t come upstairs.”

“Does he have nightmares?” Derek guides Stiles to the back of the house, where his bedroom is. He moves the pile of clothes on top of his bed so Stiles can deposit Nate on it and cover him with half of the comforter.

“I don’t know, he never says anything.” Stiles runs a hand down Nate’s hair, his thumb smoothing over his furrowed brow. “He’s just upset, he doesn’t…talk.”

“When I was there,” Derek says, “when he woke up and you were gone, he said you didn’t say goodbye and that you told him you weren’t leaving. He almost broke the door down trying to get out of the house. After you.”

Stiles lowers himself to his knees in front of Nate, resting his arms on the bed as he looks at his sleeping son.

“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” he whispers after a long moment. “It was hard at the beginning, but then it was better. Things were looking up, I finished paying for the store, he got into a great elementary school, we found the house. And then, out of nowhere—I don’t know what’s going on.”

He’s playing with Nate’s hair, eyes not leaving him.

“You’re not doing anything wrong,” Derek says from the end of the bed. “You’re working as hard as you can.”

“I’m obviously failing pretty hard at the whole parenting aspect of my life, Derek.” His tone is curt and dry and Derek backs off. He watches Stiles’ fingers still and fall from Nate’s head and then cover his own face with a soft groan. “I’m sorry. I’m-- I keep fucking up with you.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine, it’s shit.”

Stiles gets up from the floor and arranges the covers on Nate.

“What if…what if there’s something wrong with him?” He asks, very quietly. Derek frowns.

“He’s not sick, I’d be able to tell. Everyone would.”

“You couldn’t tell when I was…when--” Stiles is clutching at the covers, his hands unsteady and Derek rounds the bed and helps him let go.

He steers Stiles back to the kitchen, his palm flat on the small of Stiles’ back.

Stiles falls onto the ratty couch close to the window, head thrown back and eyes closed. Without asking, Derek starts setting up a pot of coffee.

“I never really,” Stiles begins while Derek’s back is to him. “I never really thought I’d have kids, you know. After that fucking year, after…I didn’t feel like myself for a long time. When I thought about it, I wondered…what if there was something still in there. And what if I could pass it around?

“And even if I couldn’t, even if everything was okay, did I really want to bring a kid into a world where shit like that could happen?”

He laughs, his eyes still closed, smiling up at the ceiling.

“Even before that, I never thought I’d make a good father. Imagine me having to raise a tiny Stiles. I still buy my dad the biggest Father’s Day’s presents….”

Derek is quiet. He finishes setting up the coffeemaker and flicks it on before sitting down at the kitchen table, a safe distance away from Stiles.

“And he’s the best grandpa, too. Everyone is great, everyone acts like it’s so fucking easy. Like it should come naturally. Even _you_.” He throws a hand in Derek’s direction before letting it fall back on his thigh. “The thing is, I used to enjoy it so much. He was…we were best buddies, you know? I told you, we were so close. What if there’s something wrong, Derek? What if there’s something inside of him that I can’t fix?”

The sound of the coffee gurgling in the pot is loud and it drowns out Stiles’ frantic heartbeat somewhat. Derek leans forward, the movement making Stiles lower his eyes and look at him properly.

“There’s nothing wrong with him,” Derek tells him. “The Nogitsune is gone. There’s nothing you can’t fix, Stiles.”

Stiles laughs again, humorless and low. “There’s so much I can’t fix.”

“Nate doesn’t need to be fixed.” Derek tries to put as much weight in his words as he can. Stiles’ eyes stay fixed on his. “He’s anxious and insecure, but he’s also smart and quick and just the way six year-olds are supposed to be.”

“But why is he insecure?” Stiles asks. “He knows I love him, I tell him he’s amazing every day. Everyone does. Why is he waking up in the middle of the night and freaking out like I-- like it happened to me.”

“I don’t know,” Derek admits.

“Because I know he’s not like that all the time, okay? I know it happens when he’s with me. Last week? When we stayed at my dad’s house after dinner? He slept straight through the night. He woke up at nine, had breakfast and watched TV. Boyd picked him up for camp like nothing.

“But then that night at home he didn’t go down until midnight, and only for a few hours before he was crying at my door, and we had to go sleep downstairs.”

“Do you think,” Derek begins, already guessing how his suggestion is going to go down, “that maybe the stories are scaring him?”

Stiles frowns at that, his eyes boring into Derek’s. The coffee machine stops.

“He loves those stories,” Stiles says. “And they’re one-hundred percent PG, no blood, no unnecessary information about bodies or weird family relations.”

“He’s convinced he needs superpowers,” Derek continues.

“What little kid isn’t?”

“Yeah, but he’s friends with a werewolf younger than him. She can’t do anything yet, but what’s going to happen when Lucy is fourteen and Nate is a few years older and he asks her to bite him?”

Stiles blanches.

“He wouldn’t-- _She_ wouldn’t! We’re teaching them better, they-” And he stops himself, looking at Derek with wide eyes. Derek knew better, too, when he was a teenager. He’d grown up just like Lucy is growing up: with a big family around him. His cousins had been human, a lot of them had been waiting until they turned eighteen to take the bite – willing to risk their lives for a chance at being like the rest of their family.

Stiles seems to understand what Derek is saying and he slouches forward, elbows going to his knees.

“You think that’s why he’s acting like this? Because I remind him that he’s human?”

Derek wants to reach out and put his arms around Stiles, pull him into his lap on the couch and let him fall asleep against him like that.

Instead he gets up and starts pouring the coffee into two mugs.

“I don’t know,” he replies as he hands Stiles his coffee. “But I think you should remember wolves weren’t the only heroes in those stories.”

“I know that.”

“Nate doesn’t.”

They drink their coffee. Derek pretends he’s not staring, but he’s drawn to Stiles’ fingers around his mug, to his long legs bent in front of him, one foot on top of the other on the floor. Stiles smells nice in this house. Derek likes the way his scent mixes with the woods and the night air. He wishes he’d stay enough so that the scent would linger, it makes Derek feel more settled.

“I never thought I’d hear you talk like that,” Stiles speaks up later, snapping Derek out of his thoughts. “Wasn’t the bite supposed to be a gift?”

“I grew up,” Derek says, serious. He can hear Nate turning in bed, leaves rustling outside. Stiles’ heart skipping a beat.

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees, his voice a rasp. He clears his throat. “We all did. Kinda inevitable.”

The sun is mostly set by now, the light around them gray. Stiles’ eyes are dropping in spite of the coffee, his face looks a little hollow in the dark.

“You should stay here tonight,” Derek tells him, hopes he’s not going to have to force him. “Take the bed with Nate, I’ll sleep out here.”

Stiles looks at him, not saying anything for a few long seconds.

Derek stays completely still when he sees him set his mug down on the floor, and when he gets up and walks over the four steps separating them.

He’s frozen in place when Stiles leans down over him, but lifts his face up obediently when Stiles nudges his jaw with the cold pads of his fingers.

It’s barely a kiss – only a dry peck that leaves Derek sort of empty when it’s done. But Stiles’ eyes are warm, liquid amber pining him in place, and his hold on Derek’s face is strong and unwavering.

He’s gone a moment later, closing the bedroom door behind him as Derek looks on, alone in the empty kitchen.

-

A strange whirring sounds wakes Derek up with a start.

He’s on his feet before he knows it, and it’s only then that he realizes the noise is coming from the bathroom and that Nate is sitting at the kitchen table, staring at him.

“You scared me,” he says, munching on a piece of toast.

Derek rubs at his face, a little unbalanced. Nate has been sitting there (Stiles has apparently even made him breakfast not six feet from where Derek had been sleeping) and he didn’t wake up once before now.

“Sorry, buddy,” he grumbles and sits back down. “Did you sleep well?”

Nate nods, focusing back on his toast. Derek should stock up on peanut butter or something. Maybe jam. He used to love raspberry jam when he was a kid.

“Is that your bed?” Nate points at the couch. Derek looks down at the worn cushions and huffs out a small laugh, rolling his shoulders.

“I lent my bed to you and your dad yesterday,” he replies just as the sound in the bathroom cuts off. A moment later, Stiles comes into the room. He looks well rested and more awake than Derek feels. His face is close shaven, his stubble now only a shadow on his cheeks and chin. He’s holding his hand up, closed around the source of the strange noise.

“Look what I found in your bathroom,” he says, grinning, and Derek narrows his eyes at him.

“What’s that?” Nate asks, dropping what’s left of his toast on his plate and turning in his chair. “Is that a gun?”

Stiles makes a face at him, rolling his eyes and putting his free hand on his hip. “Now, why would Derek hide a gun in his bathroom?”

The full night of sleep obviously did wonders on his mood. Nate scowls in thought.

“Maybe he wants to be a policeman like Grandpa,” he says, looking at Derek for confirmation.

Derek shakes his head. “No guns in this house.”

“That’s right.” Stiles walks further into the sitting area where Derek is still sprawled on the couch. Derek watches him approach, a feeling of trepidation slowly climbing up his spine. “No guns. But who knew you still owned one of _these_.”

“What is it?” Nate asks again, getting off his chair and walking up to Stiles to inspect what’s in his hand.

Derek takes pity on him and tells him, “It’s an electric razor.”

Nate frowns, looks up at his father as if he can’t believe that’s it – a mix of disappointment and disgust so earnest Derek has to bite down a smile – and then goes back to his breakfast, interest completely lost.

Meanwhile, Stiles is starting to look a little dangerous. He’s leaning down in front of Derek, the razor held in front of his face.

“And it works perfectly fine, as you can see,” he gestures at his now-smooth face with a smirk.

“What’re you trying to say?” Derek sits up straighter, his hand going up to rub his beard. It’s long enough he can actually burry his fingers in it.

Stiles’ eyes follow Derek’s movements, he wets his lips before replying. “I’m saying,” he says, “that maybe you could let me uncover some more of your face. Between this,” he shoves the razor at Derek’s chin, “and your eyebrows, I can barely see you.”

“You can see me,” Derek protests, moving his face out of the way so the blunt side of the little plastic barbs runs down his cheek, catching on his beard and pulling a little.

“You look like you’re hiding some horrid scar or something. Like a bear maimed you while you were living out in the mountains.”

“I wasn’t--”

“You definitely look the part,” Stiles cuts him off, drags the razor back, pushing it closer to Derek’s mouth. “Not all of it,” he says, low and just for Derek to hear. “Just a little shorter. So I can actually see your face.”

Derek looks up at him. He likes this vantage point. He likes being caged down like this, breathing in and only smelling Stiles. He likes the warmth coming out of Stiles in a big, enveloping wave. He likes that he apparently trusts Stiles enough that he’s able to sleep through his voice and him moving around his house.

“Fine,” he says. “Outside.”

The chair is still out on the porch and Derek falls on it with a sigh. The day is clear and hot even though it’s still early in the morning. Cicadas are going crazy around the house and the air smells fresh and dry. Stiles nudges their knees together until Derek spreads his legs, making room for him to stand close, his fingers on Derek’s neck.

“Tilt up,” he instructs and Derek obeys, closing his eyes so he doesn’t have to see Stiles’ tongue poking out of his mouth in concentration.

He hears the razor buzzing to life, feels Stiles’ grip tightening slightly, urging him to stay still. The small serrated points rake through his cheek slowly, never really pressing against his skin. He feels the short hairs landing on his neck and going into his shirt, but he doesn’t move an inch.

He can feel Stiles’ breath on his face, feel how close they are, Stiles’ groin practically pressed to Derek’s chest. Every contact point feels warmer with every movement Stiles makes.

The razor moves to his chin, combing from just beneath Derek’s lower lip down to the underside of his jaw. Derek’s hands are resting on his own thighs, his fingers clenching and unclenching. He wants to lift his arms, take hold of Stiles’ hips, touch him more. He closes his legs slightly, pressing the outside of Stiles’ and making him huff.

“You want a bald patch? Stay still.”

Right now, Derek wouldn’t mind a bald patch if it meant being able to drag his hands up Stiles’ back, inside his shirt. If he could open his eyes and bring Stiles’ mouth down to his, shave forgotten.

He doesn’t move, though. He grips his pants legs and keeps his eyes shut until the whirring stops.

When he finally opens his eyes, Stiles is looking down at him with a strange smile on his face.

“What?” Derek asks, bringing a hand up to his cheek. His beard is trimmed shorter than he had it in a long time, prickly to the touch. He feels naked.

“Nothing, just,” Stiles breathes down at him, his thumb rubbing at Derek’s jaw. “There you are.”

Derek runs his hands over his neck, making stray hairs fall on his shirt.

“Should have taken it off before,” Stiles says and hooks a finger under Derek’s collar, pulls it away from him.

“You have something against chest hair, too?” Derek asks, grabbing Stiles’ wrist before he can overstretch his shirt.

“Nuh uh, no.” He shakes his head slowly, eyes dropping to Derek’s chest and then lower. “Nothing against what you’ve got under your clothes.”

Derek is opening his mouth to reply, not really sure what, when he hears Nate approaching. He looks behind Stiles just in time to see him coming out the door.

“What’re you doing?” He asks them, frowning in suspicion.

Stiles steps out from between Derek’s legs. “Shaving.” He says, waving the razor around. “Take a look, did I do a good job?”

He gestures at Derek, who turns his head from side to side for Nate’s inspection. Nate’s mouth thins out, his frown firmly in place before he says, “Can I shave, too?”

“Huh, let’s see.” Stiles crouches down in front of him, squints at his face. Nate juts his chin out, trying to hold back a delighted smile. “I think you _are_ due a shave. Have a sit.”

Nate hops on Derek’s lap, to both Derek’s and Stiles’ surprise. Stiles recovers quickly, turning to crouch at Derek’s feet. Carefully, he runs the plastic tips of the razor through Nate’s hairless face, humming and making comments about how well it’s coming along. Nate sits completely still on Derek’s knee, as if afraid to move and ruin his shave.

Derek sits back in the chair and watches them.

-

A little over a week later, Derek gets a call while he’s out by the construction site. The digging for the basement has started, and he’s been staring at a particular spot in the ground for a few minutes, lost in his memories, when his phone buzzes in his pocket.

He answers without checking the screen. “Hey.”

“You sound distracted,” someone who is definitely not Stiles says in his ear.

“Erica?”

“The one and only,” Erica says. Derek can hear Lucy in the background, singing along to some cheerful, _loud_ song. “What are you up to?”

“I’m by the house. The construction.” Lucy’s voice fades gradually away, as if Erica is moving to another room. “You?”

“Enduring my kid’s sick day,” she sighs. “I swear her fever disappeared as soon as I told her she could stay home from daycare. Teachers need summer vacation, too, you know.”

Lucy is young enough that her powers haven’t entirely kicked in yet. Derek remembers Cora being her age and getting sick in little bursts. One second she would seem perfectly fine, running around with him and Laura, and the next she would be breaking into a cold sweat, nausea hitting her so suddenly that she would keel over on the spot.

“Do you, uh, need help?” Derek asks, unsure. He’s been texting and talking on the phone with Scott’s pack for the last couple of weeks, but he hasn’t seen them in person since the dinner at the Sheriff’s house.

Erica laughs.

“I heard you’ve been playing babysitter, I hope you’re getting paid _somehow_.” Her tone implies things that have definitely crossed Derek’s mind since he arrived, involving him and Stiles and a soft surface to fall on. But when she refers to it as _payment_ , Derek can’t help but feel a twinge in his stomach. He thinks of that morning over a week ago, Stiles rutting against him, warm and hard underneath him, and wonders for a second what was going through Stiles’ head.

There hasn’t been anything like that first time. Nothing more than a few stray touches and a handful of soft kisses, chaste and short and confusing.

“Your silence is answer enough.”

“No--”

“Anyway, I’m calling you about tonight,” Erica pummels thought, drowning Derek’s protests.

“What about tonight?” He sighs.

“We get together once a month for drinks and gossip, you should come.”

“Who’s we?”

“Lydia, Allison and _moi_.”

Derek frowns, eyes on the bulldozer piling up dirt across from him.

“Why would you want me to come?”

It’s Erica’s turn to sigh now, “We need to ask you all sort of personal questions that would make you uncomfortable while sober, of course.”

Derek rolls his eyes, sure that’s he’s too old for this kind of thing. They all are.

“And you have insight on Stiles’ life, which is rare nowadays.” He can’t really argue with that.

“How’re you planning on getting drunk, anyway?”

Erica tsks, “Beacon Hills has changed a little since you left.”

-

The place they meet at is a bar at the edge of town, not far from the preserve. As soon as Derek steps in, he can feel the place is different. He can tell that most of the clientele and even some of the staff are not human, but he can’t sense other werewolves. Most people turn to look at him as he zigzags around the tables towards the group waiting for him.

“There’s he is,” Allison says with a smile as he approaches.

“Fashionably late.” Lydia raises her eyebrows, her hand around a tall drink.

“He was obviously trying to find the right outfit,” Erica smirks, eyes flicking down to his ratty clothes. He didn’t bother to change after coming back from the site. He doesn’t own that many nice clothes these days anyway.

“You shaved,” Allison points out, smiling.

All of this is said before he can even take a sit, and Derek can already tell it’s going to be a long night.

-

An hour and a few wolfsbane-laced drinks later, Derek is sitting back on his chair in a comfortable buzz. Erica and Lydia carry out most of the conversation, with a few comments here and there from Allison, but Derek is content just listening. He feels relaxed, a drink cradled against his chest as Lydia talks about something Scott did the day before that spiraled into a full-blown argument.

Derek keeps sending looks Allison’s way and then reminding himself that it’s been ten years, everyone’s had time to get used to the changes Derek’s still struggling with.

“How’s Stiles doing?” She asks after a lull in Lydia’s story and all of them turn to look at him.

“Don’t you see him every day?” He deflects, taking a sip of his drink. He needs a refill.

“No, _you_ see him every day,” Lydia corrects.

“Not every day.” Derek sits up and sets his glass on the table.

“He’s been working more than usual,” Allison says. “We used to get together at least once a week, but it hasn’t been like that for a while.”

“And Boyd says Nate smells more like you than Stiles,” Erica says. He expects teasing, a smirk and a look, but all of them are serious and focused.

“I-- They visit. Often.” He doesn’t say that they have stayed over at his place three times in the last week and that Derek has been taking the couch every time, never suggesting to share the bed. Both Nate and, consequently, Stiles sleep better out of their house, and Stiles wouldn’t want to worry his dad by asking to stay with him. The arrangement makes sense.

They always go early in the morning, though. Just in time to catch Nate’s bus for camp and for Stiles to open the store. They don’t really talk about it.

“How’s Nate doing?” Erica asks, her eyes never leaving Derek’s and he has to look down and away.

“He’s okay. He fights with Stiles, but other than that--”

“What kind of fights?” Lydia cuts him off.

Derek doesn’t know how to explain it. They’re not really _fights_. It’s more like Nate ignores Stiles unless he doesn’t have a choice but to ask him for something. And even then, he’s always so serious about it. Stiles pretends he doesn’t notice, normally indulging Nate in whatever he asks. Derek has the feeling that he’s trying to win back Nate’s affection, and it’s not really working.

Two days ago they were about to have dinner at the cabin and Nate decided he wanted Sloppy Joes, which Derek didn’t have. He had stocked up in a few of Nate’s preferred foods, but his kitchen was still mostly full of vegetables and pasta.

Stiles told him they could have them another time and Nate went completely stone faced, stopped replying to anything Stiles said except in monosyllables and retired to the corner with the bookcase to inspect the books there. After twenty minutes Stiles was ready to drive to the grocery store before Derek stopped him.

He took hold of Stiles’ arm and turned to Nate.

“Nate, your dad and I are going to cook something new. You can sit here on the counter with us and help, and if you pay attention, next time you can do it yourself.”

Eventually, Nate joined them. He stood on the other side of Derek, away from Stiles, and didn’t say a word. Derek could feel how miserable they both were all through dinner.

“He’s still the same when he comes over,” Erica says, saving Derek from answering. “He still plays and runs around screaming with Lucy.”

“He’s angry at Stiles about something,” Allison says.

Derek is not sure that’s exactly it. Nate doesn’t act angry, he rarely lashes out. Derek thinks they are both more sad than angry.

“What happened with his mom?”

The three women exchange a look. They are quiet for a while and Derek is starting to regret asking before Lydia speaks up.

“It’s not our place to say anything, but she’s alive, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“She doesn’t live in Beacon Hills,” Erica supplies. “And she’s human.”

“Does she see Nate at all?” Derek wouldn’t keep asking if he wasn’t slightly drunk.

“She used to,” Lydia says. “But she hasn’t for at least a year.”

A thoughtful silence falls on their table after that. Derek wants to ask more, he wants to know, but he knows Stiles is the one he should talk to. Derek wants to hear it from him.

“Anyway,” Erica says eventually. “Are you two sleeping together or what?”

“Of course not,” Derek mutters, glaring down at his glass. Wasn’t he going to get a refill?

Lydia scoffs. “You spend most of your time together, should we assume you’re just the new nanny?”

“Most of the time he’s at work and I’m out by the house.”

“Okay, you spend your _free_ time together, is that more accurate?” She rolls her eyes.

“And it’s not like you don’t want to,” Erica adds with a smirk, tapping the side of her nose with the rim of her glass.

“It’s not as easy as that.”

“He’s not a teenager anymore,” Allison says. Derek feels ambushed.

“And look at you, all grownup building a house all by yourself.” Erica rests her elbows on the table, leaning in in a way that probably has half the bar staring down at her cleavage.

“He has a kid.”

“You like his kid.”

That’s not what Derek is saying. Stiles has a kid. Everything he does affects his kid. Bringing Derek into his life the way he has was already risk enough. There’s no reason why Stiles would complicate things further.

Derek’s good for a quick handjob, a couple kisses, but a relationship with him is out of the question. Derek gets that, as much as it depresses him.

“It wouldn’t be a good idea.”

They don’t say anything back for a few seconds, the three of them staring at him with varying degrees of pity. Drunk, affectionate pity.

“Listen,” Erica finally says, “I’m glad you’re back. I didn’t notice before, but after I saw you again…something felt right, okay? Like, settled. Boyd said the same. We want you to stay, if you’re happy here. Things were shit before, but we’ve grown up. Haven’t we?”

She looks at Allison and Lydia, who nod solemnly.

“Anyway, what I mean is, we want you to stay, but we don’t want you to hole up in the woods and grow a two feet beard and develop your own language or something.” Derek scoffs, a helpless smile pulling at his mouth. “We want you around and we want you to do what makes you happy. And what feels right. Right? Am I making sense? I had too much sangria.”

“Yeah,” Derek says and has to clear his throat. “You’re making sense.”

“Good. Because you won’t screw up, we’ll make sure of it.”

Erica, Allison and Lydia smile at him and Derek gives in and returns it, relaxing back into his chair.

He’s not planning on doing anything right away. He still has his doubts, he’s still not sure getting close to people won’t end in disaster.

Still, after they part ways, Derek ends up in Stiles’ neighborhood.

His head is clear as he drives in front of Stiles’ house. The lights are on downstairs even though it’s close to two in the morning, and Derek drives down the street for about three minutes before he gives up, does a completely illegal U-turn and slides into Stiles’ driveway.

The front door is open before he’s even made it out of his car. Stiles stands under the doorway, feet bare and wearing the same worn sweatpants he had on that morning when Derek had him under him, bucking up into his hand.

Derek walks towards him.

He has an excuse prepared in his head, it’s on the tip of his tongue when Stiles closes his hand on the front of his sweatshirt and pulls him inside. Derek kicks the door shut behind him just in time to be pushed against it.

He has a second to look into Stiles’ face, to open his mouth to try to explain what the hell he’s doing coming by unannounced in the middle of the night, before Stiles’ lips are on his and all thought fades from his mind.

They kiss for a long time, Derek’s hands don’t leave Stiles’ face, who sighs into his mouth every time Derek rubs his thumbs on his cheeks, or on the thin skin just below his closed eyes. Stiles’ arms stay around Derek’s back between him and the door, his palms flat over his shoulder blades, pushing himself as close as he can get.

Stiles’ mouth tastes like coffee again and Derek licks into him, lazy, taking his time, feeling Stiles do the same to him, opening up, sucking on Derek’s tongue.

When they finally break apart, Stiles’ chin is red with stubble burn, his lips wet and swollen, his eyes half-lidded as he looks at Derek through his eyelashes, as if he can’t muster up the strength to open his eyes properly.

“This wasn’t an emergency visit, right?” He grumbles, his gaze dropping to Derek’s mouth.

  
Derek shakes his head and drags his nose up his cheek until he can press his mouth on Stiles’ damp temple, take a long breath and stay there for a moment. Stiles sighs and all but falls forward, lays his forehead on Derek’s shoulder and hugs him closer. Derek folds his arms around his neck and combs Stiles’ hair through his fingers, smiling.

“You took your time,” Stiles says, talking against Derek’s skin.

Derek is about to reply, ask him if he was waiting for Derek to make a move, when he hears a thud upstairs and then Nate’s cry of _Dad!_ runs through the house.

Stiles lets go instantly, cursing under his breath. He takes two unsteady steps towards the stairs before Nate comes flying down, rushing so much that he stumbles the last few steps and rolls to the landing before Stiles has time to catch him.

Derek darts forward and they both get their hands on him at the same time, just in time for Nate to open his mouth and let out a wail. He looks more asleep than anything, his face red and sweaty, his shirt half tucked in his pajama pants.

Stiles swears again, sitting Nate down on the steps so he can look him over.

“Did he hit his head?” He asks, a little frantic. Derek smooths down Nate’s hair.

“No,” he says. He looks at where Nate is clutching at his leg, still crying. Derek places his hand around Nate’s knee and takes some of his pain away. It’s not much, and he can’t smell blood. “He’s okay, he’s just scared.”

Derek can smell the panic in Nate, bitter with tears and sweat.

Stiles picks him up, and Nate allows it for a second, pressing his face against Stiles’ shoulder before whining and squirming out of his grip.

“Buddy, come on,” Stiles tries, but Nate is pushing at his chest, his heartbeat picking up. Derek helps Stiles put him down on the floor, and they both watch him run into the sitting room.

Derek starts to follow when he notices Stiles is not beside him. He turns to see him sitting down on the stairs, his face in his hands.

“Hey,” Derek says and crouches down in front of him. “It’s alright.”

“It’s not fucking alright.” Stiles’ voice is muffled by his hands and his breathing is ragged. Derek takes his wrists and pulls them down. Stiles’ face is flushed, his mouth turned down at the corners. His eyes look dangerously wet.

“It’ll be alright,” Derek amends and wills Stiles to relax, for his shoulders to loosen, for his frown to disappear. He leans in, presses his forehead against Stiles’. “How does a glass of milk sound? Go find Nate and I’ll fix you both up.”

“You’re spoiling us,” Stiles rasps after a moment, closing his eyes before drawing away to stare at Derek’s hands around his own.

“Nothing wrong with that.”

-

Derek can hear Stiles moving around from the kitchen. He can hear his bare feet slapping the hardwood floor, furniture being moved around, the rustling of curtains, a door creaking.

He can also hear Nate’s breathing, small and quick coming from somewhere in the sitting room.

Derek knows Stiles is going to find Nate, so he concentrates on the two mugs he’s taking out of a cupboard, on the small pot he finds drying on the rack near the sink.

He listens as Stiles talks softly to Nate, cajoling him out of his hiding spot.

When Derek exists the kitchen, two steaming mugs in his hands, he finds Stiles sitting cross-legged on the floor between the coffee table and one of the couches.

“Nate, bud, come out of there,” he’s saying, his voice strained. “Derek brought you something to drink.”

Nate doesn’t appear and Derek sets the mugs on the coffee table. He’s not sure where he should go from here. He’s not sure if he should join Stiles on the floor or stay away until Nate decides to come out from under the couch.

But one look at the defeated slope of Stiles’ back has Derek walking around the table to him, placing a hand on his shoulder before lowering himself to the ground.

He doesn’t say anything, though. Doesn’t try to convince Nate to come out, doesn’t announce himself in any way. He rubs the back of Stiles’ neck, draws a sigh out of him.

“Nate, are you going to sleep down there? It’s gonna get cold,” Stiles tries. “There’s warm milk out here. Maybe we can find a cookie in the kitchen if you come out.”

Nate doesn’t. Derek listens to his quiet sobs with his fingers buried in Stiles’ hair.

“Did you have a bad dream?” Stiles asks, his knuckles going white where he’s clutching at his bent knees.

“You weren’t sleeping,” Nate’s voice comes drifting out from underneath the couch, small and trembling.

“I was down here working, bud. You know I go to sleep late.”

“No,” Nate replies, a bit stronger. “You left.”

“I promise I didn’t, I was right here.” Stiles leans forward, his chest almost flat against his legs so he can peer under the couch. “I wouldn’t leave you alone.”

Nate doesn’t say anything for a moment and then he sniffs and his hand comes into view. Stiles reaches out and takes it, letting out a breath. “I fell down the stairs.”

“Did you hurt yourself?”

“My leg.” He’s crying again, but he’s slowly dragging himself into Stiles’ lap.

“Derek can find a band aid for you,” he says against Nate’s hair, looking at Derek out of the corner of his eye.

Derek stands without a word and goes do exactly that.

-

“There was a time when Derek’s little sister was sick,” Stiles’ voice floats up to Derek and he stops in his tracks. “She was very weak and she wouldn’t wake up.”

He’s standing in the hallway upstairs, on his way to the washroom to find band aids. He can hear Stiles through the slick floorboards as clearly as if he were standing in front of him.

“Derek was very worried, he loved his little sister very much and he wanted her to be healthy as fast as possible. So his uncle had an idea.”

“Peter?” Nate’s voice, quieter and softer, reaches Derek.

“Yes. He was always having strange ideas, and he told Derek _you can give her all your powers, that way she’ll wake up._ ” He makes Peter’s voice scratchy and high. “And Derek asked _will she really be okay if I do that?_ Because sometimes he didn’t believe Peter.” Stiles’ version of Derek’s voice is just Stiles’ own voice, low and steady.

Derek starts walking again, passing by Stiles’ office and Stiles’ room, Nate’s dark bedroom and finally reaching the bathroom.

“ _Of course_ , Peter said. So Derek took his little sister’s hand and passed to her all the power he could.”

He doesn’t know how Stiles knows the story. Doesn’t know how to feel that he’s telling it to Nate while knowing Derek can hear him.

“Derek lost his superpowers?” Nate asks.

“He lost a lot, but not everything. But he was happy, because when he was finished, his little sister was awake.”

“But can he still break walls?” Nate’s voice is a slur now, almost as if he’s talking in his sleep.

Stiles is quiet while Derek rummages through the cupboard in the bathroom. He finds a box of Batman band aids and takes it.

“He can do a lot of things. He can protect his friends, he can build houses and he’s a good detective. Grandpa knows.”

When Derek makes his way back to the sitting room, Nate is curled up on one side of the couch, fast asleep. Stiles is leaning over him, running a hand through his short hair. Derek hands him the box without a word and Stiles rolls Nate’s pant leg up and quietly puts a band aid on his uninjured knee.

“Batman makes everything better,” he says, smoothing Nate’s pajamas back down before falling onto the other side of the couch. He closes his eyes as he takes deep breaths.

Now that Derek is paying attention, Stiles looks weary again. Tired, like his energy got sucked out of him. In the cabin he was alert, his skin was flushed and even his hair looked healthier.

“What’re you doing? Come here,” he says and Derek starts. He didn’t realize Stiles’ eyes were open and on him.

Derek walks around the coffee table and sits on his other side, so he’s not between Stiles and Nate. He’s unsure of what to do for a second before Stiles sighs and slumps against him. Derek manages to put his arm around him and rest his hand on Stiles’ head. He feels Stiles’ heart against his side, beating steadily. His breaths hit the side of Derek’s neck.

“Sorry about that,” he mutters a second later.

“About what?”

“We got interrupted.”

“There’ll be other chances,” Derek says, looking down at Stiles to check his reaction. But his eyes are closed, his face slack. A second later, he starts snoring.

-

Scott calls Derek not long after that.

It’s late afternoon and Stiles and Nate are on their way. Derek is sitting on his porch, waiting. Diner is cooking inside, he put fresh sheets on his bed and bought a box of popsicles at the store.

“Hey,” Scott says in his ear when Derek picks up.

“Scott,” he replies, leaning back on one hand.

“How’s everything?”

“The same. Good.” A pause. “You?”

Scott laughs. His voice got slightly deeper over the years, so his laugh is a pleasant rumble that makes Derek smile to himself. He’s in a good mood. He feels calm, relaxed in his own territory, surrounded by familiar sounds and smells.

“I’m great, man,” Scott says. “Lydia told me you had a good time the other night.”

“Yeah.” Scott is probably the least possessive Alpha Derek has met. No everyone would have opened their doors for him again, no matter in whose name the lands were in.

“Listen, you know Stiles’ birthday is coming up, right?” Scott asks and Derek sits up – he didn’t know. “We wanted to do something special for him, since it’s been a though year, you know. We were thinking a surprise party at his place. I was wondering if you could distract them for the day, maybe bring them home at around five. You could invite them to this cabin him and Nate are always talking about?”

Derek blinks, slightly surprised that Stiles talks about him away from his immediate presence. “Sure,” he says. “When?”

“How’s next Saturday sound? That gives you like ten days to back out.”

“I’m not going to back out,” Derek says, rolling his eyes and standing. He can hear Stiles’ car approaching.

“Have in mind that Stilinski parties tend to get wild.”

“I’m sure the six year-old and the toddler go crazy at parties, yes.”

Scott laughs again just as Stiles’ car rounds the small path leading to the cabin and stops behind Derek’s truck.

“Hi!” Nate screams out the window, waving. Derek saw him the morning after he fell asleep with him and Stiles’ on their couch, and he was still acting a little off. Like he was still half asleep even as he walked towards the bus waiting for him by the curve. He kept looking over his shoulder, eyes droopy and little fists clenched on his backpack straps as Stiles stood by the open door.

Derek smiles and waves back.

“Is that Nate?” Scott asks, even though of course he knows.

“I have to go,” Derek answers, watching as Stiles slides out of his car and opens the door for Nate, a small overnight duffel bag slung over his shoulder.

“Okay, I guess I’ll have to buy you a drink to get some answers out of you. I see how it is.”

“I’ll talk to you later, Scott.”

Scott snorts, “Sure, man. Have a good night.”

Derek hangs up.

-

Stiles and Nate don’t really leave after that. It’s not something they decide or even talk about. It just happens, and Nate seems to accept it like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

By the third day, Derek is expecting him to start asking about his house. About his toys, his TV shows (since Derek doesn’t have a TV or internet access at the cabin), his room, anything. But he doesn’t. He seems perfectly content exploring the land around the cabin, showing Derek the new plants he learned about at camp (“We’re growing beans in a jar but mine are sick”), retelling stories that Stiles has told him and ask about how accurate they are (“Did you _really_ live in a train once?”).

Stiles goes to town every morning to work, and Derek walks Nate to camp, which turns out to be just out of the preserve.

Boyd looks surprised for half a second on the first morning Derek emerges from the woods with Nate on his shoulders, since the first couple of times Nate had stayed over, Stiles had made a point of driving him back to their house to be picked up by the bus. Boyd doesn’t comment, though. Just claps Derek’s arm in greeting and ushers Nate to his group.

Stiles usually comes back from work with groceries, but by the time he’s pulling up the dirt path, dinner has come and gone and it’s almost time for Nate to go to bed. Derek’s bed, which he has completely given up on.

There are no confrontations between Nate and Stiles while they stay with Derek, but if Derek is being honest, they don’t see each other enough for something to happen.

Stiles normally says hi to a sleepy Nate in the morning and then pats his head goodnight when he gets back from work. But Derek has seen the way he curls up around Nate when he slips into bed next to him long after midnight, and he knows by his breathing that he doesn’t fall asleep right away. Something deep within Derek wants to be there with them. His scent has all but disappeared from the room by the fourth consecutive night he sleeps on the couch, and while he likes the idea of his sheets smelling like Stiles, he would prefer his own scent to be mixed in as well.

The rest of the cabin, though, smells like the three of them.

Stiles is always carrying that mix of dust and maple syrup that Derek has discovered comes from the piles of pancakes he likes to prepare for Nate, and his scent is impregnated on Derek’s sleeping couch. Every night after Nate’s been sleeping for a while and Stiles is finished with all the work he brings back to finish at home ( _Derek’s_ home, _temporary_ home), he falls on Derek’s lap and they kiss for a while like they’re both ten years younger. Derek likes to run his hands over Stiles as much as he can, likes to feel the way his muscles tense and relax under his palms. He likes his fingers knotted in Stiles’ hair, holding his head in place, occasionally tilting it a different way.

Afterwards, Derek stretches out alone, listening to every little sound around him, and inhales deep before closing his eyes and relaxing against the cushions. He pointedly doesn’t think about what Stiles and him are doing, what it means, how long it’s going to last.

(Nate’s own scent is a little bit of Stiles’, along with the faint smell of sweat and wood. He spends his evenings laying down on Derek’s old hardwood floors, drawing big pictures for Derek to pin on every available surface around the house. Derek’s favorite is one Nate did of the cabin, surrounded by trees and with Stiles and Derek’s cars parked in front of it. It’s hanging from a pillar right in front of Derek’s couch, and it’s the last thing Derek looks at before falling asleep.)

-

“How do you feel about editing twenty pages of werewolf family history?”

“What?”

Stiles waggles his eyebrows.

“Werewolf family history. Editing. All over this table. You, me. Right here, right now.”

Derek rolls his eyes. They’re sitting across from each other at the kitchen table, the remains of Stiles’ dinner dangerously close to the edge. The rest of the table is covered in papers, notes and book pages. Stiles is half turned towards his laptop while he looks at Derek.

“You have experience, right?” And he smirks, his eyes glinting under the screen’s glow.

Derek stares at him, face blank.

“I’m serious,” Stiles says after a few seconds.

“You need help?” Derek asks, looking down at the mess of papers in front of him. Not everything is in English, and while his Spanish is passable, he wouldn’t risk ruining Stiles’ work dusting off his language skills.

“I could use some…I mean, if you want,” Stiles trails off, his eyes leaving Derek to look back at his computer. “It’s not urgent or anything, but if you have time tomorrow….”

“Show me.” Derek gets up and walks around the table to stand behind Stiles’ chair. He leans down so his face is level with Stiles’. He hears him swallow, sees the way his fingers stutter on the keys for a moment before he’s pulling up the right file.

In the bedroom, Nate is sleeping soundly. Stiles didn’t get home-- Stiles didn’t arrive from work until late and he missed Nate’s bedtime. Derek made him brush his teeth and get into his pajamas before tucking him in. He told Nate a story about three wolf siblings having adventures in the forest.

“I have this whole journal entry about this pack,” Stiles says as he scrolls down the file. “I translated it but I haven’t proofread it and I have to start with this old recipe book and I know _that’s_ gonna scramble my brain so maybe, if you could….”

“Sure,” Derek says, close to Stiles’ ear.

“Thanks.” Stiles’ voice sounds slightly strangled. “I have a printed copy for you, since you’ve regressed to the dark ages.”

“I have a computer,” Derek argues and Stiles scoffs.

“That thing has to be ten years old.”

“Twelve. And it works perfectly fine.”

“You’re lucky you’re hot because between this and your outfits I’m surprised people don’t mistake you for a caveman more often.”

“Some people are into that,” Derek mutters into the side of Stiles’ neck, one hand resting on the back of the chair.

“I do not doubt that.”

Derek straightens back up. “You’re not that much better than me,” he says, eyes traveling down Stiles’ body. He’s wearing his already familiar sweats and an old Beacon Hills High sweatshirt that has definitely seen better days.

“I’m a father, I’m allowed to let myself go.”

“ _Your_ father still makes an effort.”

“What’re you doing checking my dad out? He’s a married man!” Stiles turns on the chair to face Derek properly, who is now leaning against the kitchen sink. “An almost _retired_ , married man.”

“Exactly,” Derek smirks. “And he still looks better than you.”

Stiles scowls and stands up. “Don’t forget who had to force you to shave, Gandalf.”

“Not gray yet.”

“Oh, I’m sure I can find some gray if I try.” Stiles walks between Derek’s legs, lets his weight fall forward. His hands come up to Derek’s face, his blunt nails scratching down his cheeks. Derek closes his eyes, unable to stop the soft rumble that seems to start from his chest and climb up his throat. “I actually think you’d look good.”

Derek leans into the touch, grabs at Stiles’ hips in case he’s thinking of moving away and pulls him even closer.

“You actually pulled off that stupid beard.”

Derek smiles as he feels Stiles’ fingers slip down to his neck.

“What’d you do on your twenty-eight birthday?”

The question makes Derek frown and open his eyes. Stiles is close, so close Derek has to back off a little to focus his vision.

“What?”

“When you turned twenty-eight. You were around Buffalo, right? What did you do?”

“I…I don’t remember.” He probably stayed in, Skyped with Cora. Maybe went out to find someone to spend the night with. He hadn’t made a big deal out of his birthday since before the fire. As a teenager, he thought himself above celebrations. Looking back, he regrets any wasted opportunity to spend time with his family. “Why?”

“Just wondering how I should spend Saturday,” Stiles loops his arms around Derek’s neck. “It’s my birthday, you know?”

“I heard,” Derek replies, inhaling.

“I was thinking…maybe I can drop Nate off at my dad’s after whatever Scott has planned.”

“Yeah?”

Stiles nods and Derek feels his fingers on the back of his head, pulling on his hair slightly. “I don’t have to get up early on Sunday.”

“How d’you know Scott is planning something?”

“I didn’t until now.” Stiles smirks, closing in. “But I won’t tell you babbled.”

He kisses Derek before he can protest – he did not babble, he was tricked.

Kissing Stiles is actually sort of therapeutic. Derek doesn’t remember kissing someone just for the sake of it in a long time. With Stiles, in his kitchen or on the couch, with Nate sleeping not twenty feet from them, Derek knows it’s not going anywhere. They never even let their hands go into their clothes, in fact they don’t even lower them from each other’s shoulders, waists at the most.

When they break apart, Stiles is panting slightly. He looks a little better than he did a few days ago, as if living out near the woods is restoring his energy. He’s eating better, too, even though Derek can tell his cheekbones look too sharp, his cheeks a little hollow.

He’s about to suggest he go to bed when Stiles’ eyes flit over Derek’s shoulder and he smiles.

“My kid has a crush on you.”

Derek blinks. “He does not.”

“Since before he even met you,” Stiles says as he steps away and starts gathering the papers on the table. Derek turns to look behind him and finds one of Nate’s drawings taped to the windowsill. It’s a picture of Derek, his face mostly obscured by his beard. His fist is raised, bigger than his whole body, and pointing at a house. He assumes cartoon him is about to punch some walls. “I thought he was going to faint the first time he saw you.”

“Just like his dad.”

Stiles snorts, “I can’t believe it’s been so long. I’ve actually known you for as long as I’ve known _Allison_.”

“You’ve had more time to get to know Allison.”

Derek sees Stiles bite down on his reply, turning his back completely on him. “Yeah,” it’s all he says.

“So what’re you planning for your birthday, then?” Derek asks, hoping to break the tension that’s building all of a sudden.

Stiles makes a neat pile out of all the papers in his hands, he closes the laptop and takes his plate from the edge of the table. “You tell me,” he says. “Are you going to distract me while Scott sets up and then make up an excuse to go to his house unexpectedly?”

Derek raises his eyebrows, taking the plate from Stiles so he can rinse it in the sink. “Something like that,” he says.

“And how are you planning to distract me?” And he’s right there again, pressing against Derek’s back, arms going around his middle, his chin hooking on Derek’s shoulder.

“It’s not like I’ll have to force you to stick around.”

He feels Stiles tense and Derek grabs at his wrists before he can move away.

“I’m not complaining,” he says, his soapy fingers tightening their grip. There’s a pause before Stiles relaxes again, slumping a little into Derek.

“You better not be,” he mutters. “We’re delightful to be around.”

-

Just as Derek thought, there’s really not much he has to do to keep Stiles and Nate at his place on Saturday. It’s not like they’ve slept anywhere else in over a week, he finds it hard to imagine Stiles would have any inclination to get up early on a Saturday to go back to his house.

Nate wakes Derek up by poking him on the forehead. Derek opens his eyes to find his face inches from his, tanned and freckled from his days at camp and at the preserve.

“It’s Dad’s birthday today?” Nate asks in a hush. Derek groans as he sits up, maybe he should get another bed. He’ll need it for the new house eventually anyway. “Derek?”

“Yeah, buddy,” he says.

“We don’t have any cake.” Derek looks over at the kitchen and sees a few cupboards hanging open. Nate’s already been exploring.

“We’ll have cake later, with everyone else.” Nate deflates a little. “But we can make breakfast and you can bring it to him.”

Nate’s eyes widen, a smile blooming on his face. “We can eat in bed?”

“Just this once.”

“What about when it’s _my_ birthday?”

Derek falters. They should probably talk to Nate at some point, explain that he’s not going to be sharing a bed with his father for the rest of his life. He’s going back to his own bedroom, eventually. To his own house and his normal routine. This is like a vacation, until him and Stiles are…better.

“We’ll see,” Derek replies, vague, and Nate seems to accept it. He bolts towards the fridge and stands there waiting for Derek to join him.

They make eggs and toast, coffee for Stiles and Derek and chocolate milk for Nate. Derek doesn’t really have anything to carry all of it to the bedroom, so he gives Nate the food, all piled up in a single platter, and takes the drinks himself, along with three forks. It’s not exactly a complete breakfast, but Derek can take them out to lunch later. It’s a special occasion, after all.

Nate goes into the bedroom first, pushing the door open with his back. Derek follows and sets the three mugs and the forks on the nigh table before taking the platter from Nate so he can scramble onto the bed. The room is small, the bed taking most of the space available. There’s a small closet in one corner, a dresser in another. The blinds are drawn and Stiles is a misshapen lumps under the covers.

Nate sits on top of what Derek thinks are Stiles’ legs.

“ _Dad_ ,” Nate calls, wiggling in place. “Wake up!”

Derek snorts at the way Stiles’ head pops up from the blankets, his hair a mess, his eyes unfocused.

“Wha’?” He says, trying to turn around while pinned down by Nate’s weight. “Nate?”

“It’s your birthday,” Nate announces. “We can eat breakfast here.”

Stiles manages to squirm himself free enough to turn his body, and he startles at seeing Derek towering over him, still holding the toast and eggs.

“Happy birthday,” he says, presenting the food to him with a smirk. It’s far from an attractive display.

“That actually smells great,” Stiles says, sitting up and causing Nate to topple off him with a laugh. “Did you make this, bud?”

“I didn’t used the stove.” Nate crawls closer and sits between Stiles’ crossed legs, for which Stiles looks surprised for a second before smiling. “Derek helped me.”

“Did he?” Stiles takes the plate and sets it in front of them. “I missed having breakfast with you.”

“You don’t have to work when it’s your birthday,” Nate says.

“Yeah.” Stiles drops his forehead a top of Nate’s head, eyes closed and Derek thinks maybe he should take his coffee and leave them alone. They haven’t spent time with each other for a few days, they haven’t gotten along like this for longer. But Stiles glances at him before Derek can move. “Are you going to sit or what?”

So Derek sits next to them, his and Stiles’ backs against the headboard as he passes the forks over.

It’s a disaster, to say the least. Stiles and Nate are the messiest eaters Derek’s met, and that’s saying something, considering the way he grew up. They talk with their mouths full, they move around too much, and they spill their drinks down their shirts more than once.

But there’s not a single argument, not a grumpy look or an uncomfortable moment. It’s the first time Derek’s seen them behave this way, the way Stiles swore they used to behave around each other. After the food is done and Stiles is complimenting them on their culinary abilities, he reaches out and hugs Nate close to his chest, something Derek has only seen him do when Nate is asleep. Nate returns the hug, burying his face in Stiles’ t-shirt for a long moment.

-

They spend the day outside. Derek takes them to see the house, since Stiles hasn’t been there yet. Nate shows his father around, pointing out all the changes he notices since the last time he was here. Stiles asks him questions, pulls Derek along behind them.

The walls are already up for the ground floor, the basement was finished two days ago. Nate darts through every room, his feet slapping on the concrete floor. Stiles stays next to Derek, their shoulders touching. The day is hot and humid, Derek can tell that rain is approaching. Probably not tonight, but soon.

Scott texts him close to four in the afternoon, telling him they should start heading to Stiles’ house. Derek ushers Nate into his car, tells him they’re going to go have cake. Stiles gets into the passenger seat with a smile. “You know, if Scott wasn’t completely obvious, I would be hurt that no one bothered to send me a birthday message today.”

“We made breakfast,” Nate says from the back.

“And it was the best breakfast I’ve ever had.”

The good mood in the car lasts until Derek makes a turn into the suburbs, and then Stiles frowns.

“This is not the way to Scott’s,” he says. In the backseat, Nate is quiet. Derek can see him through the rear-view mirror as he stares out the window.

“We’re not going to Scott’s,” Derek says, glancing at him.

“Oh.”

No one says anything else until they pull into Stiles’ street, and then Nate speaks up, “I want to go back.”

“We’re almost there, Nate,” Derek replies, trying to sound reassuring, but the atmosphere in the car is suddenly stifling.

“I don’t want cake anymore,” he insists, his voice close to a whine. “Dad, can we go back?”

“Everyone is waiting,” Stiles tells him, though he sounds as if he wants to agree with Nate. “Grandpa and Lucy.”

Nate sniffles and Derek feels like shit for not warning them where they were going. But he honestly didn’t think a quick trip to their house would bring out this reaction.

When he pulls into the driveway, behind three other cars, he kills the engine and turns to Nate. He’s sitting back against his seat, his hands clutched together. He looks close to tears.

“What’s wrong, Nate?” He asks and feels Stiles turn, too.

“Why did we come here?”

“For your dad’s birthday party,” Derek says, and sees Nate’s eyes flicker to Stiles, his nostrils flaring as if he’s holding back a sob.

“I didn’t want to come here.”

“It’s only for a few hours.” Derek reaches out and unlocks Nate’s seatbelt. “It’ll be okay.”

The three of them are silent as they exit the car. The house ahead of them is lit up and Derek can hear people talking inside. No one is trying to pretend Stiles hasn’t figured out there’s a party waiting for him inside.

Everyone calls out as soon as they step in. Scott jumps in front of Stiles and engulfs him in a big hug, followed by Erica and Melissa. Lucy appears between the grownups’ legs and darts for Nate, but he bypasses her, walking straight into the sheriff’s arms and staying there, his face tucked into his grandfather’s chest. Derek catches the man’s eyes and shrugs.

Stiles manages to put on a happy face for the rest of the evening, laughing and thanking everyone for their gifts. Nate stays on the sheriff’s lap most of the time, not even agreeing to come stand next to Stiles when it’s time to blow the candles. Lucy takes his place, and Stiles holds her up as everyone sings. Afterwards, when everyone is cheering, Derek sees Nate turned around, refusing to even look as Allison hands out the cake.

Scott and Boyd corner Derek when he’s taking more plates out from the kitchen.

“Hey,” Scott says. “I thought everything was okay.”

“It was,” Derek replies. “They were fine until we got here.”

“Have they actually been sleeping at your place? It didn’t smell like anyone had been here for a while when we arrived.”

“They sleep better at the cabin,” Derek says, aware that it sounds strange. Boyd gives him a look, but says nothing.

“Is Nate okay?” Scott asks.

“He was.”

“He didn’t even try the cake. It’s chocolate.”

Derek shrugs, unsure of what to say, when a cry comes from the sitting room. Boys spins on his feet and bolts instantly, Scott and Derek half a step behind him.

Everyone is standing by the stairs. Lucy is in Erica’s arms, crying into her shoulder. She throws her arms at Boyd as soon as he’s close enough, and he takes her, big hands holding her easily.

“What happened?” Scott asks as Derek makes his way to Stiles, who’s kneeling by Nate.

“I said I don’t want to play in my room,” Nate sobs, clutching at the banister.

“That’s no reason to push someone,” Stiles says and Derek feels like he’s gone back in time. All the progress they appeared to have made is gone, Stiles sounds just as worn as he did the last time they were here.

“She grabbed me.” And sure enough, there’s a bruise already forming on Nate’s arm. Erica and Boyd start scolding Lucy, which makes her cry harder. Nate tucks his chin on his chest and closes his eyes.

“She’s sorry, honey,” Melissa says, crouching next to Stiles. “She doesn’t know how strong she is.”

“I told her I didn’t wanna go upstairs.”

“I know,” Melissa assures him. “Let’s see that arm.”

While Melissa convinces Nate to let go of the banister long enough for her to check the bruise, Scott walks up to Derek.

“I think we should head out,” he says. “The kids are tired anyway.”

“Sorry about all of this, Stiles,” Boyd says, but Stiles only waves him off from his spot on the floor.

“We’ll call you tomorrow,” Allison assures him. “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks for the surprise, guys,” Stiles says without turning. Scott pats his shoulder and, one by one, all the members of his pack leave. Only the sheriff and Melissa remain, huddled around Nate alongside Stiles. Derek stands behind them.

“You’re okay, Nate. It’s just a bruise.” Melissa eventually says, releasing Nate’s arm so he can wrap it around the banister again. “Lucy didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Can we go home now?” He asks and Derek has to look away from him. He sees Stiles shoulders tense slightly, sees the sheriff’s raised eyebrows.

“You are home, sweetie,” Melissa says and Nate looks around, eyes wet with tears. He doesn’t say anything and he doesn’t let go, his chin quivering, his lower lip caught between his teeth.

“Maybe Nate can spend the night at our place, how’s that?” The sheriff offers, placing a hand on one of Nate’s socked feet and squeezing. “You can come with me to the station tomorrow morning and help me with the paperwork.”

After a second, Nate nods.

Derek and Stiles see them off, standing side by side just outside the door, not touching.

“Let’s go,” Stiles says after Melissa’s car rounds the corner. “Upstairs.”

He pulls Derek into his bedroom and closes the door behind them, harder than necessary. He yanks his shirt off and starts on his pants. “Come on,” he says, bypassing Derek and going for the nightstand. He takes out a bottle of lube and a handful of condoms, takes two and shoves the rest back into the drawer.

“Stiles,” Derek starts and Stiles turns to him, his pants dropping to his ankles.

“You want to or not?” He crawls onto the bed until he can reach out and take the hem of Derek’s shirt, pull it up and away from his body. Derek takes it off, lets it drop on the floor while Stiles kneels on the bed in front of him, starts unbuttoning Derek’s jeans.

Derek takes his hands, successfully stopping him, and Stiles looks up at him, his jaw set.

“What?” He asks. “I thought we were doing this. It’s my birthday gift, right?”

“Stop, Stiles,” Derek says and climbs on the bed to kneel in front of Stiles, his legs on either side of Stiles’ knees. “We don’t have to do anything tonight.”

“But you want to,” Stiles squirms and gets his hands free, presses his cold palms on Derek’s naked chest. “I want to, too.”

“You had a bad night--”

“Exactly,” Stiles cuts him off and goes for his jeans again.

Derek can hear his heart racing, see his fingers gone clumsy in his haste. There’s not a hint of arousal in his scent.

Derek stops him again.

“ _Derek_ ,” Stiles snaps, his tone impatient and Derek puts his hands on his shoulders, pushes him back against the bed. He straddles Stiles’ hips, leaning down so he can rest his elbows on the bed and get his hands on Stiles’ hair. He scratches at Stiles’ scalp, presses his thumbs on his temples and draws the pain away.

The tension around Stiles’ eyes leaves instantly, his entire body relaxing underneath Derek.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he mumbles, shuddering, his exhale hitting Derek’s lips.

“Better?”

“Yeah.” He puts his hands on Derek’s thighs, rubs his palms against the denim. “I’m sorry.”

Derek doesn’t reply, just lowers his forehead against Stiles’, feels the last traces of the headache leaving him.

“Did I just completely fuck up?”

“Not completely,” Derek says.

“I’ll crash at Scott’s, okay?” Stiles says and Derek…Derek is not surprised.

“I’ll drive you,” he says.

-

The next morning, Derek wakes up to the sound of approaching cars. He walks outside just in time to see Scott and Lydia pull up, followed by Erica, Boyd and Allison.

“Hey, man,” Scott says, walking over. “We brought lunch.”

Boyd carries four pizza boxes inside with a nod in his direction. Lydia and Allison give him twin smiles as they breeze past him.

“You look half dead,” Erica tells him once she’s in front of him. Derek didn’t sleep very well or very long the night before, and he’s not really sure what’s going on right now.

“I told you Stilinski parties get crazy,” Scott says, smiling.

“Where’s Stiles?” Derek asks, for which he only gets raised eyebrows and knowing looks. He’s too tired for this.

“He went back home,” Scott explains. “Nate and Lucy are at the station, making up.”

“Oh.”

“We thought it was unfair that only they got to see your place,” Erica says, pushing him back inside. She stops once they’ve crossed the doorway, her nose scrunching up. “Did they ever even _leave_?”

The house still smells mostly like Nate and Stiles – Derek just hopes no one decides to go into his bedroom. He changed the sheets where they had breakfast the day before, but that didn’t help much in diffusing any scent.

“What’s this really about?” Derek asks, not very subtly trying to change the subject.

“Why do you assume we have an ulterior motive?” Lydia asks, rummaging around the kitchen for, Derek figures, plates. “We just want to spend time with you.”

  
“I’ve hardly seen you around since you came back,” Scott adds, looking at him with big, earnest eyes as he takes a seat at the table. Derek sighs.

“Fine.”

-

Derek doesn’t even hear from Stiles for almost a week.

He spends his days at the construction site, sitting by the tree line and watching his house slowly come to life in front of him. He goes to town once, does laundry and buys groceries early in the morning and considers stopping by Stiles’ store, just to check on him.

But Scott is keeping him updated, and he hasn’t said anything is out of the ordinary. Nate is still going to camp, Boyd says. Stiles is in the middle of a big job, Lydia informs him. Life is just continuing as normal.

And Derek is existing like he was before everyone found out he was back. He’s still coming back to an empty place, cooking dinner for one, sleeping in a room that’s slowly starting to smell only like him.

-

Thursday night, Derek gets a call in the middle of the night.

He’s only just managed to fall asleep when the ringing makes him snap awake. He fumbles with the phone, curses when it tumbles out of the nightstand and onto the floor. When he finally manages to get hold of it and squint at the screen, he’s greeted with Stiles’ sleepy face from all those weeks ago.

He hits answer.

“Stiles,” he says, already up and looking for his clothes.

“Hey.” Stiles sounds only half awake, his voice hoarse.

“Are you okay?”

Stiles laughs and it sounds awful. “Define okay.”

“Where are you?” Derek digs into his jeans pocket, looking for his car keys. He fishes them out as he stalks to the front door. “Is Nate alright?”

“We’re on our front step,” Stiles sighs. “Nate's fine now.”

“Hold on.” Derek gets into his truck and places his phone on the console, hits speakerphone. “Why’re you on your front step?”

“He wouldn’t stop crying until we came out of the house.”

Derek starts the engine and pulls into the dirt path leading into the woods.

“Are you actually driving here?” Stiles asks, more awake now. His voice sounds small coming out of the phone’s speakers, half drowned by the truck’s rumbling.

“I’ll be there in ten.”

“Yeah, if you break every traffic law in existence.” Stiles groans. “I didn’t mean to call you, I just--”

“I’m glad you called me, just stay on the line, okay?”

“Derek--”

“I’m already on the highway,” Derek says over him, drives out of the preserve and onto the pavement. Only then does it occur to him to look at the time: it’s almost four in the morning.

Stiles is, as he said, sitting on his front step when Derek arrives at his house. Nate is huddled next to him, his head on Stiles’ thigh, fast asleep. Neither seem to be wearing shoes.

“Wow, fourteen minutes,” Stiles mutters. “You’re getting slow.” Derek ignores him as he walks towards them, ready to haul both of them into his car and drive back to the cabin.

“What happened?” He asks instead, standing over Stiles, his fists clenched at his sides. He wants to reach out, but refrains.

“Nothing new, he woke up and freaked out. I couldn’t convince him to go back to sleep as long as we were inside.”

Derek crouches in front of them, looks into Stiles’ bloodshot eyes.

“Have you slept at all since Saturday?”

“I got a few hours in at the store,” Stiles says, closing his eyes and thumping his head against the door behind him. Derek stares at the long line of his throat, white against the harsh light above them. “It’s been some week.”

“How long have you been sitting here?” Derek asks and touches Nate’s cheek, feels his cold skin with the tips of his fingers.

Stiles opens his eyes and looks down at Derek’s hand. Derek pulls away.

“I shouldn’t have called you.” Stiles runs his own hand down Nate’s bare arm.

“Why not?”

Stiles gives him a wry smile, only one corner of his mouth lifting. His eyes are hooded, the stubble on his face a few days old. He’s looks like the same over-worked, miserable guy that bumped into Derek almost two months ago.

Derek drops one knee onto the step and loops his arms underneath Nate, lifts him off the cold ground. “Get up,” he tells Stiles and stands. Nate instantly turns and burrows against his chest with a sleepy sigh, drawn in by the warmth of his body.

Stiles looks up at them, still slumped on the floor.

“Get up, Stiles.”

With a grunt, Stiles uses Derek’s leg as leverage as he pulls himself upright, wavering slightly on his feet before regaining his balance. “I’m up,” he says.

“Open the door,” Derek almost growls, getting angry. He hates seeing Stiles like this.

Defeated.

“I don’t--” He looks at Nate, face twisting in worry. “I’m not sure if it’s a good idea.”

“I’ll stay,” Derek assures him, taking a step closer, crowding Stiles against the door. “Come on.”

Stiles drops his head, sighing, but he turns and unlocks the door after a second.

The lights are on inside, the sitting room a mess of Stiles’ papers and open boxes spilling with books. The air feels stuffy and heavy, nothing like the first time Derek was here.

Derek bypasses the debris and goes straight for one of the couches, lowers Nate onto it. He doesn’t wake, only turns so he’s facing the back of the couch and settles.

When Derek turns, Stiles is standing by the doorway, his arms around himself. Everything in the room is still, quiet. Goosebumps rise on Derek’s arms, and he suppresses a shiver.

“Are you cold?” He asks Stiles, taking a step in his direction before changing his mind. Instead he stops and turns on his feet, goes into the kitchen. He sits at the table and waits for Stiles to join him.

It isn’t long. Stiles appears at the door a minute later, hesitant like this is not his house, his kitchen that Derek is sitting in.

“I’m sorry about Saturday,” he says, harsh like Derek is forcing him to speak. “About everything.”

“ _I’m_ sorry, Stiles,” Derek sighs. “I should’ve told you where we were going.”

“No,” Stiles snaps. “It’s not your fault we’re messed up. Regular kids don’t have a meltdown every time they step into their house. Regular parents know what their kids fucking _need_.”

“Stiles--”

“Listen, it’s already a miracle you stuck around as long as you did,” Stiles goes on and Derek is startled into silence. “I wish…I can’t just do whatever I want anymore. A few years ago, if you had stayed then, who knows? But things went the way they did and I had a kid and here we are. We’re a package deal.”

Derek frowns, “I know that.”

“I don’t think you do.” Stiles runs his hands through his hair. It looks unwashed and it stays up and pointing backwards after Stiles lowers his hands back to curl around his elbows. “All of my kid’s weird phases are _my_ weird phases. His tantrums and his sick days and his…everything. It’s part of me, too. I can’t separate myself from that. If he calls, I have to be there.”

“Stiles, I _know_ that.”

“No, you _don’t_!” Stiles snaps, his eyes flashing, his cheeks going pink. “If you did, you’d be running for the hills. You just came back, you’re rebuilding your fucking family home, what the fuck are you even doing letting us sleep in your bed and cooking us breakfast and driving to us in the middle of the night just because I called--”

Derek is standing up, the edge of the kitchen table pressing against his thigh. Stiles is on a roll, hands flying, face flushing more and more.

“--and you don’t even ask for anything, who _does_ that? You’re supposed to be starting over, not picking up after--”

“ _Stiles_.” Derek takes the couple of steps separating them and grabs at Stiles hands, forcing them down. “I’m not doing anything I don’t want to.”

Stiles barks out a laugh, bitter and shaky. “Sure.”

“What do you think I was doing before you found me? Don’t you think I could just ignore your calls if I didn’t want to talk to you?”

“I guilt-tripped you into everything,” Stiles says. “I took advantage of you.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

“Just because you’re not aware of it doesn’t mean it’s not true.” Stiles yanks his hands out of Derek’s grip, taking a step back. “You’re the guy that turned a bunch of helpless teens into wolves and then spent two years sacrificing himself for them, even after you were not responsible for them anymore. Of course you’re going to want to help poor little me, raising a kid all by himself.”

“You’re not by yourself and I don’t feel sorry for you, Stiles.”

Stiles faces scrunches up before he closes his eyes and takes a breath, exhales it slowly.

“It’s not fair to…force you to stay,” he says, eyes still closed, arms crossed.

“You’re not forcing me,” Derek insists.

“I’m not going to let you waste your time with us.”

Derek’s anger spikes again and he grabs at Stiles’ shoulders, makes him open his eyes and _look_ at him.

“You are not a waste of time,” he tells him, as clear and firm as he can. “And Nate is not a waste of time.”

Stiles stares at him, unblinking for a long, long moment before he pulls away.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean? Because whatever it is, you’re probably wrong anyway.”

Stiles laughs, mean and quiet, and says nothing. He looks hurt, though, averting Derek’s eyes again, his face slowly crumpling, his teeth tearing at his lips.

“Whatever’s wrong with Nate,” he says. “I have to be there. And the last time I-- I don’t want anyone to be caught in the mess again.”

“No one’s--”

“I think it’s better if you go home,” Stiles cuts him off, still looking away. “And don’t…I shouldn’t have called you. Don’t pick up next time, okay?”

“I’m not doing that, Stiles,” Derek growls.

“I’ll delete your number, whatever.” He shrugs. “You should go.”

But Derek _can’t_ go. He can’t leave Stiles believing that everything Derek’s been doing was out of guilt. He can’t let him believe that he’s alone, that Derek won’t come to him at the drop of a hat. And Derek can’t go thinking that Stiles—

“Why did you take me into your room?” He asks and Stiles flinches. “Why did you ask me to your bed, why did you--”

“Because I knew you wouldn’t say no,” Stiles mutters. “And I wanted to get off.” And his heart is doing summersaults, jumping all over the place and he’s _lying_ but still…Derek still falls silent. It still stings.

“Oh,” is all he manages to get out.

“Derek--”

“I’ll go if you want me to,” Derek says. “I don’t want to, but I will if you really need me to.”

Stiles is breathing hard, looking torn. He opens his mouth, closes it and chews on his lip. Derek waits.

“You should go,” he finally says. “Please.”

“ _No!_ ”

Both Stiles and Derek jump at the shout, and turn to see Nate standing behind Stiles, on the other side of the doorway.

“Nate,” Stiles starts, but Nate shouts again and drowns out whatever he was going to say.

“Why’s Derek have to go? Why’re you sending everyone _away_?! Everyone goes away because of _you_!”

“No, bud, listen.” Derek can’t see Stiles’ face, turned as he is to look at Nate, but he sounds destroyed.

“No! _You_ go! I want _you_ to leave, not Derek!”

“Nate,” Derek tries, walking closer, but Nate keeps going like he can’t see him. His eyes are trained on Stiles, red rimmed and furious.

“It’s all your fault that we can’t go to his house, and it’s all your fault that- that you make everyone go away and that we came here and I don’t like it here and I don’t like _you_!”

And then Nate seems to realize what he said, because he stops and burst into big, exhausted tears. Stiles doesn’t move to get to him, doesn’t react at all. Derek starts walking to him, doesn’t like that he can’t see his expression, when Nate turns and runs off and up the stairs. A moment later, a door slams on the first floor.

The kitchen is eerily quiet, only the sound of Stiles’ harsh breathing around them.

“Stiles,” Derek starts, but then Stiles seems to snap out of his shock.

“ _Shit_ ,” he spits under his breath and runs after Nate.

Derek stays in the kitchen, unsure of what to do. He listens as Stiles walks down the hallway above him, going to Nate’s room. He listens as he knocks on the door.

“Nate, can I come in?” There’s no reply. Derek starts walking towards the front door. Stiles asked him to leave, and Derek said he would.

He’s almost at the front hall when he hears Stiles’ voice again.

“Nate, open the door. Nate? Nate!” A loud thump. “What the fuck- Nate! _Derek!_ ”

And Derek is bolting up the stairs, practically getting to the top floor in one leap. He stalks down the hallway, where Stiles is trying to push Nate’s door open.

“I can’t fucking open, it doesn’t lock from the inside, Derek,” he’s saying, desperate as he hits the door with his shoulder hard enough that he leaves a dent on the wood. “I can’t _hear_ him.”

“Move,” Derek tells him and pulls him away, uses his own shoulder to hit the door. Except a second later he’s sprawled against the opposite wall, his entire arm buzzing.

“ _What the hell_?” Stiles cries, lifting his leg and kicking at the door with the sole of his bare foot. He swears and tries rattling the doorknob. “Nate!”

“Stiles, I can’t get through the door because of the protection,” Derek says, getting back on his feet.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Stiles pants, starting to look panicked.

“There’s a protective spell or something in Nate’s room, I couldn’t go in before.” He’s talking around fangs, his claws out. Stiles’ panic and his inability to hear Nate are making him want to rip the door off its hinges.

“There’s no spell, what the _fuck_ ,” Stiles whines, throws his shoulder against the door again. “I wouldn’t use something that keeps wolves out, everyone I know is a wolf!”

And Derek’s head is reeling, thinking back to that day. Did he notice anything strange? The room was dark, he remembers. And the energy that threw him back was cold, it made him numb. The energy at Stiles’ store was warm. This is something else. And it has been right here all this time.

“Move,” Derek says again, and Stiles scrambles away. But once again, Derek can barely connect with the door before he’s flying backwards and this time it feels like a million needles dipped in ice are stabbing his entire left side.

“ _Derek_ ,” Stiles pants, right over him. Derek can’t focus his eyes, his vision is blurry. “Don’t do that again, there’s something…something’s wrong with your arm.”

He tries to get up, but his left leg can’t hold his weight. He slumps back against the wall with a snarl and tries again. Stiles is kneeling by the door and trying to look through the keyhole, his hands shaking, planted on the door on either side of his head. “I can’t see anything.”

Derek manages to get up, shifting his entire weight to his right side. He looks down at his arm and sees it’s turning into a purplish gray. Then he looks at the wall next to Stiles. “What’s behind here?” He asks, limping, eyes flashing blue.

Stiles looks up at him through glazed over eyes, his face pale. “Nate’s closet.” He swallows and then, “I’m having a panic attack right now.”

“Stiles, _breathe_ ,” Derek tells him, grunting as he starts to feel his left hand stinging, coming back to life, blood starting to flow normally. “Breathe, I’m going to break down this wall.”

He touches it, almost sure his hand is going to be expelled away like he was from the door. But his fingers brush the concrete, and he feels no trace of the strange energy.

“What?” Stiles says through a wheeze. His chest is heaving.

“You need to breathe so you can go inside and get Nate when I make a door for you, okay?”

“Is my house haunted?” He asks, falling on his ass and putting his head in his hands, his breaths still too loud and too quick. “Is my fucking house _haunted_?”

“ _Stiles_!” Derek snaps. “I’m going to--”

“Break down the wall, I _heard_ you!” Stiles shouts down at his lap. “Do it already!”

So Derek lifts his fist and concentrates all his strength in the swing. His knuckles connect with the wall and he feels it give in, his skin splitting. When he prepares for the second hit, he aims for the bloody imprint left on the paint.

It takes three punches to make a hole big enough for Stiles to crawl into, and by then, his entire left side feels like it’s crawling with ants, but he can move it again. He stumbles out of the way as Stiles climbs inside Nate’s room, his heart going insane. Derek tries to follow, but he can feel the strange, cold energy expanding to the wall now, and he can’t risk passing out and leaving Stiles and Nate alone.

“Nate,” Stiles calls from inside and Derek can see him through the closet door (he really did punch through to Nate’s closet), though his voice sounds far away. “Where are you, buddy?”

Derek can’t smell them and can’t hear Nate, can barely see what’s happening in the room and he feels himself shifting more, his face contorting and changing. He’s ready to start growling again.

“Nate?” Stiles sound a little further away now and Derek goes as close to the entrance as he dares, trying to hear. “Are you okay?”

“Dad,” Nate says, small and scared and Derek almost plunges inside before he stops himself.

“Stiles,” he says instead. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” comes Stiles’ voice from somewhere in the room. “We’re here under the bed.”

“Is there someone else there, Nate?”

A pause and then, “He says no.”

“I didn’t mean to slam the door,” Nate says, quietly.

“It’s okay, kiddo. Let’s just get out of here, alright?”

“We can’t,” Nate whimpers and Derek straightens, alert.

“Why not?” Stiles asks, starting to sound anxious again.

“Sometimes I can’t,” Nate says, voice trembling. “And I call you and you don’t hear me.”

“Nate, I’m _sorry_. You’re not sleeping here anymore, I promise. We’ll go someplace else, we’ll have a hundred pancakes with all the maple syrup you want.”

“Okay.”

“But first we have to try to get out, okay?”

“Try to come this way,” Derek calls. “If you can’t, I’ll try the window.”

“Hear that?” Stiles says, sounding closer. “Derek actually punched down the wall. I told you he could do it.”

A moment later, they appear in front of the closet. Nate’s eyes widen.

“Let your dad try first, Nate,” Derek warns and hears Nate gasp. Only then does he remember what his face look like.

“You look like Scott,” Nate says, his voice wavering, his hand gripping at Stiles’.

Derek forces his face back to normal, his fangs retracting, his bones quickly rearranging themselves.

“Stiles.” Derek gestures for him to come forward. Stiles pushes Nate behind him and stretches out his arm. His hand stops right at the edge of the hole. He hisses and walks a step closer, but his arm bends, his hand stays suspended in midair, not getting through.

“Shit, I can’t,” he says, his arm dropping. “I can try jumping th--”

“ _No_ ,” Derek stops him. “Let’s not have you concussed where I can’t reach you, okay?”

Nate starts crying.

“I wanna go,” he says between sniffles and Stiles brushes back his short, sweaty hair, looks around.

“What if I use something? Like a chair or something bigger.”

Something rattles in Derek’s brain, a memory pushing its way forward.

“Wait, what’s in the corner of the room?” He asks, to which Stiles frowns. Derek points to the corner he could barely see that time he tried going into the room. “Something looked weird there, is there a dresser?”

Stiles steps out of the closet, Nate close behind him, and looks to a point Derek can’t see. “Just a few boxes,” he says.

“What’s in them?”

“Nate’s toys, clothes, I don’t- Wait.” He disappears into the room, leaving Nate where Derek can see him.

“It’s okay, Nate,” Derek tells him, wishing he could just reach out. His left side feels normal again, and he’s already considering climbing up the side of the house for the window when Stiles calls out.

“One of my boxes is here,” he says. “This is supposed to be at the store.”

He comes back carrying a small cardboard box. Nate flinches when he gets close and scrambles into the closet, huddling in a corner.

“What’s in it?” Derek asks, claws lengthening again at Nate’s reaction.

“A bunch of weird things I found in some of the books. This was supposed to stay inside the mountain ash circle.”

He opens the box and looks inside, frowning. Derek tenses, ready to try to break through the barrier again.

“Stiles, don’t--”

But Stiles sticks his hand inside, rummaging through things Derek can’t see, but sound like paper. A moment later he makes a noise, a small, pained gasp, and pulls out a folded piece of paper.

“This,” he says, choking on the word. “D- Derek.”

The tips of his fingers are turning purple.

“Stiles, let go of that,” Derek growls, body straining forward. He can feel the barrier inches from his nose, the energy lashing out, warning him not to get closer.

“No, I just need to…rip it.” He’s gasping, his hand trembling and the box falls from his grip with a thud at his feet. Nate whimpers again.

“Stiles, _let it go_.” Derek’s shifting again, a growl rumbling in his chest.

“I can’t,” Stiles gasps, his whole body looks stiff. Derek’s fist flies forward and there’s a crack as his vision whites out, back against the opposite wall. He snarls, forces himself upright as he shakes his head, willing his eyes to focus and he sees Stiles on his knees, his entire hand an ashy gray.

Derek’s about to move, to throw himself against the barrier again, when movement catches his eye and he sees Nate running to Stiles. He reaches out with a whine, small hands closing around Stiles’ wrist, brings Stiles’ arm down and bites.

Stiles jerks, his fingers spasm and the little paper flutters to the floor. Both Stiles and Nate stumble, Nate still holding onto Stiles’ arm and sobbing.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Stiles mumbles, drawing Nate in with his good arm. Nate clutches at Stiles’ shirt, his face buried in his chest.

“Stiles,” Derek manages to get out through his teeth, his own arm still useless at his side, and Stiles meets his eye, his brow damp. “Find a way of destroying it without _touching_ it.”

He ends up using Nate’s kiddie scissors with his left hand, scooping the paper up with the rounded blades and cutting it neatly in two. The second it’s done, it feels like a vice that had been pressing on Derek’s temples without his knowledge lets up, and his head is suddenly clear.

His right arm feels so cold it burns for one long second before it returns to normal in one swift rush. Stiles’ groans, hunching over himself and grabbing at his right hand as the same thing apparently happens to him.

The barrier disappears instantly, and Derek climbs into the room and goes to Stiles, who is slumped on the floor, Nate on his lap.

“Are you okay?” Derek asks, taking Stiles’ hand and checking his fingers. They look normal, not the strange dead color they were turning before.

“Yeah,” Stiles sighs, blinking. “I feel like I just woke up.”

Derek does, too. There was a strange kind of pressure in the house before that’s been lifted.

“Come on,” he says, helping both of them to their feet. “I’ll get you out of here.”

-

Stiles gets into the backseat with Nate, pulls him in as close as he can and buries his nose in his hair. Derek closes the door softly and gets into the driver seat, starts the engine. It’s just now starting to rain, a light drizzle hitting the windshield.

“Where…” He starts before he meets Stiles’ dark eyes in the rearview mirror. “Can I bring you home?” He asks instead.

“Yeah,” Stiles says and rest his head back.

-

Once at the cabin, Derek gathers a sleeping Nate in his arms and leads the way inside. He walks through the sitting room, past the kitchen and into his bedroom.

Nate settles into bed quickly, and Derek puts the comforter over him, rubbing at his bare feet through the fabric. Stiles watches from the door.

“Get in,” Derek tells him, and Stiles takes the few steps to the bed and climbs in next to Nate, curling around him.

Derek is about to go when Stiles catches his arm.

“Can you stay?” He asks, his eyes glinting in the dark. Derek stares at him for a moment before nodding. He kicks his boots off and slides in behind Stiles.

After a few minutes of listening to Nate’s steady breaths, Stiles speaks up again.

“I didn’t mean what I said at the house,” he mutters, low. “It feels like a dream, the whole thing.”

“Yeah,” Derek agrees. Whatever was in Nate’s room was affecting the entire house.

“I didn’t…kiss you just because you were there,” Stiles goes on. “And I know you’re not here because I forced you.” A pause. “Right?”

“I like having you around.” Derek draws closer, puts his arm around Stiles’ waist. “You and Nate. I like cooking you breakfast and having you over. I enjoy spending time with you.”

Stiles presses back against him, his back fitting perfectly against Derek’s chest.

“I never lived with Nate’s mom,” he whispers, quieter than before, mindful of Nate sleeping right there. “I met her at College, we dated for a while before she got pregnant.”

Derek presses his nose against the back of Stiles’ neck, listening.

“She’s from somewhere in Nebraska and her family didn’t want to get involved. My dad helped her with everything. I found a second job, she never wanted to consider…other options, you know.” He sighs. “She was studying some complicated international relations and computer science hybrid of a major, she wanted to study in England.

“I didn’t want to stay in Beacon Hills, but after Nate was born and she went back to school, Nate spent a lot of time with my dad and Melissa. I tried to graduate as soon as I could, but between Nate and work my grades went to shit and I had to drop out for a year. I lost a scholarship and I moved back here, lived at my dad’s with Nate for a while. That’s when Allison sent me the first set of books.

“She, Nate’s mom, she came to visit on weekends and holidays, but we weren’t really together anymore, and I think she never really planned to have kids. She was so awkward with Nate, it was…at the time it wasn’t funny. She went to England when Nate was about three and I got a loan to buy the store and we moved to the apartment. I finished studying after that.” He sighs. “It’s not a particularly interesting story.”

“And now?” Derek asks against Stiles’ skin, ignoring the last part. “Where’s she?”

“The last time we spoke was over a year ago, she was about to go to Scotland for a Masters or something. But I think Nate, I mean we never talked about it. He calls her Mom and everything, or used to, but he hasn’t asked about her in so long, I don’t know….”

“He didn’t mean what he said, either,” Derek says, tightening his grip, pressing closer.

“I haven’t been a great dad,” Stiles mutters. “I didn’t even realize my kid was being locked in his room by an evil…whatever the hell that was.”

“I didn’t realize either,” Derek insists. “No one did. You saved him.”

“Actually he saved me.” He shifts under Derek and lifts his arm. “I think I’ll have a scar.” There’s a small, round imprint of teeth close to his wrist. “And then you saved us. Again.”

“I couldn’t even go inside the room, Stiles.” He takes Stiles’ arm and smooths his thumb over the wound.

“I’ll go back tomorrow and check what that thing was,” Stiles says, settling back on his side, hugging Nate close.

“I’ll go with you,” Derek says. “And we’ll call everyone else. Deaton, too.”

“He’s not the only expert in town anymore, you know.”

“I don’t want something like tonight to happen again.”

Stiles hums, going quiet. Derek waits for him to argue, and when the silence continues, he closes his eyes.

He wakes up when he feels someone shift in bed, hours later.

“Dad,” Nate’s says in what he probably thinks is a whisper. “Derek’s here.”

Derek pretends to be asleep as he feels Stiles turning in his arms.

“Yeah, he is,” he says, sounding half asleep. “I guess he missed his bed.”

“He’s very tired.” Nate’s small hand lands on Derek’s cheek, clumsy and rough. Derek has to fight to keep his eyes closed. “His face was different yesterday.”

“That’s what happens when he gets scared,” Stiles says.

“He had big teeth.” Nate’s fingers prod at Derek’s mouth, pushing his upper lip out of the way to look at his nonexistent fangs. “They’re okay now.”

“Was he scary?” Stiles asks and Derek stills, his fingers digging into Stiles’ side.

“No,” Nate says, plainly. He shifts again, the bed dipping more. “I didn’t see when he punched the wall.”

“I’m sure he’ll show you next time,” Stiles says, sounding out of breath. “Watch your knee, bud.”

“Can we have breakfast here?”

“Go see what you can find,” Stiles instructs, his hand landing on top of Derek’s. “But stay away from the stove.”

Nate’s hand slips away and there’s a soft thud. Derek hears his small footsteps leaving the room, going to the front of the house. It sounds like it’s raining outside.

“Kids are the fucking weirdest,” Stiles mutters.

Derek feels him starting to get up and tightens his grip, forcing him back down.

“What time is it?” He mumbles into Stiles’ ear and feels him shudder.

“Past noon,” Stiles breathes, angling his face so that Derek can press his lips blindly to his neck. “I need to ask someone to watch Nate while we go to the house.”

“In a minute.” Derek drags his lips up Stiles’ neck to his jaw, fitting his leg between Stiles’. One of his hands ends up inside Stiles’ shirt, his skin warm with sleep.

Derek sighs. The day before he had been sure he would never get to do this.

“Dude, not really the time,” Stiles gasps, pressing his hips back. Derek can hear Nate in the kitchen.

“I know.” He opens his eyes and kisses Stiles cheek, releasing him.

Stiles’ face is flushed, his hair needs a wash and a brush two days ago.

“Let’s do that again later, okay?” He says.

“Okay.”

-

After they call Scott they get the entire pack plus the sheriff driving up to the cabin, everyone rushing to Nate, crowding a freshly-showered Stiles, asking Derek what happened.

It takes some convincing, but Nate agrees to stay with Lucy and the sheriff while everyone else goes back to the house.

Everything looks exactly the same as they left it. Stiles’ papers are still all over the sitting room, it’s still quiet and the lights are on. The hallway upstairs is covered in plaster and mud from Derek’s boots that he forgot to take off the night before.

Boyd whistles when he sees the hole on the wall.

“Good luck getting your deposit back,” he says, to which Stiles groans.

“One problem at a time, please.”

They manage to open Nate’s door without problem, and it creaks loudly as they push inside. The room is still half unpacked, boxes littering the floor, turned on their sides and, much like the ones downstairs, spilling with books. As well as toys, endless amounts of Lego and colorful clothes.

“Stiles, you’ve been living here for almost four months,” Lydia reprimands him.

“I promised I’d let him decide when he was going to unpack,” Stiles says, looking away.

“You didn’t set a very good example yourself.” Lydia gives him a pointed look, referring to the entire house still full of unpacked boxes.

“Lay off him,” Erica says, speaking from inside the closet where she’s taking a closer look at Derek’s work. “It’s not like he’s been living here anyway.”

“Can we concentrate on the problem at hand, please?” Stiles practically whines, rubbing at his forehead with the back of his hand. “I really don’t want to be here longer than necessary.”

“Do you feel something?” Derek asks, coming to stand closer to him.

“No,” Stiles mutters, looking at him out of the corner of his eye. “This place just gives me the creeps when I actually pay attention.”

“Where’re you planning to stay now?” Scott asks. He’s crouching by the two halves of the strange folded paper, taking pictures with his phone. “Your dad’s?”

“I’ll move some furniture back to the apartment for now,” Stiles replies, and then tells Derek, “I’ll need your muscles and your car, if you’re willing.”

“Yeah,” is all Derek says. Of course he can’t ask Stiles to stay with him, there’s hardly any room. They can’t keep sharing a bed with Nate, and Derek doesn’t want to go back to the couch now that he knows what Stiles feels like sleeping against him.

“Not today, though,” Stiles continues. “Last time we had to move everything out the window in Nate’s old room, it took two days.”

“How’d this end up here, though?” Scott asks, standing up and nudging the paper with his foot.

“The box got mixed up,” Stiles says.

“We moved those here.” Scott looks at him with big, sad eyes. “You think one of us--”

“It was a mistake, Scotty,” Stiles tells him, going over to clap his shoulder. “I should have realized it wasn’t at the store in the first place.”

The box with the rest of the strange items is still sitting on the floor next to the closet. Derek walks closer and peers inside, but as he suspected, all he sees are papers that mean nothing to him.

“I’m taking that back to the store today,” Stiles says. “And I don’t really want to touch that one again.” He just his chin out at the little paper that next to Scott’s foot. “What did Deaton say?”

“He’s coming over later to take a look at it,” Allison says. She’s by the window, holding a jar in her hand. “He says it sounds like a protective spell that was left alone for too long. It probably fell out of one of the books. He’ll take it to the clinic and get rid of it.”

“What’s that?” Erica asks, pointing at the jar.

“Is that Nate’s project for camp?” Boyd takes it from Allison, holds it up to his face. The paper and beans inside are completely black and dry, a slight rotten smell wafts from the tightly closed lid.

“Did this thing do that?” Stiles asks, voice breaking.

“Let’s just take what you need and leave the rest for Deaton, okay?” Lydia says and takes Stiles’ hand, pulling him out of the room.

-

It doesn’t go as smoothly with Nate as that first morning suggested. He keeps waking up in the middle of the night for an entire week before his sleeping pattern goes back to normal, and every time he does, he cries for Stiles as if he’s not laying right next to him.

Derek sleeps on the couch.

They tried to talk Nate into going to the Sheriff’s house, where Stiles’ old room serves as Nate’s these days, but they couldn’t convince him.

Every time Derek wakes up to Nate’s cries, he has to resist the urge to go to him, to help Stiles calming him down, to lay next to them and sleep listening to them breathe. He stays on the couch, staring up at the ceiling and listening as Nate settles, Stiles murmuring stories to him.

After a week, he helps Stiles move his old furniture back into his apartment. He’s there the first time Nate comes in and he watches his eyes go wide, watches him run to look at his old room and jump on his bed, so happy he only laughs.

He finally shows Derek his Lego collection that day, and they build houses until Stiles calls them for dinner.

-

His house is finished well into August, when the weather is hot and sticky and he spends most of his days (when Nate is at camp and Stiles at work) outside the cabin, under the shade of the trees.

Derek goes see it before he moves his furniture in, stands in the middle of the empty rooms and tries to imagine what his life is going to look like from now on.

-

“Well, it’s a little,” Stiles gestures with his hand, as if searching for the right word, “minimalistic.”

“It’s a couch, Stiles,” Derek sighs, rolling his eyes at the item in question. “It’s the only thing I have to put here.”

“That’s sad,” Stiles says, flopping down on the couch. “I like the art, though.” He nods at Nate’s drawings adorning some of the walls. “When are you buying more stuff?”

“I was thinking you and Nate could help me choose,” Derek suggests, somehow unable to look Stiles in the eye and settling for his lap.

“Yeah?” Stiles leans back against the cushions, brings a hand up to his hair. “We do have impeccable taste.”

“You have horrible taste.”

“That’s no way of getting me to help you.”

He’s the first person Derek’s brought to see the finished house. Derek moved all the furniture from the cabin by himself, since there wasn’t much to move anyway. The couch he spent so many nights in is now the only piece of furniture in the sitting room. The table he had breakfast at with Nate and Stiles is in the kitchen, his bed and dresser in the master bedroom.

“Aren’t you going to give me a tour?” Stiles nudges his foot against Derek’s calf.

“Get up, then.”

He takes Stiles through every room, points out every resemblance with his old family home. He added a few to the original blue prints, like the window seat in the study and the island counter in the kitchen. Stiles follows him quietly, paying attention to every word Derek says, inspecting every little detail Derek describes to him.

“It’s great, Derek,” he says softly when they’re done. Then clears his throat and adds, “It’ll look better after the Stilinski touch, but good work, man.”

“Thanks.” Derek smiles. “And, uh, I know you’re not taking stuff out of the store anymore, but if you needed a place for your books…. I have plenty of room.”

Stiles looks at him, biting down a smile.

“I’m still helping you edit some stuff, anyway,” Derek adds.

“Yeah?” He asks. “You’ll keep my dusty old books in your brand new home?”

Derek frowns, “Don’t make me change my mind.”

“No, listen, that’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever told me.”

Derek snorts, barely managing to keep a smirk at bay. “That’s sad, Stiles.”

“I know, I’m pathetic.”

“Really, because I can definitely do better if--” Derek stops himself.

“If what?” Stiles presses, stepping closer, his toes almost on top of Derek’s.

He cups his jaw between his palms, his fingers brushing Derek’s newly grown beard. He decided he’s going to let Stiles be in charge of keeping it tamed, since he’s the one that’s going to be getting personal with it. Derek hopes.

Stiles brushes his thumbs over Derek’s cheekbones, and Derek looks into his eyes. They look bright and alert, his face tanned, his hair still a disaster but healthy and shining under the light streaming through the window. This is how he wants Stiles to look like all the time from now own, teasing and rested and happy.

“If you…let me,” Derek finishes, turning his face against Stiles’ palms.

And Stiles smiles, one corner of his mouth lifting in a light-hearted smirk and says, in a tone that suggests he’s going to try his hand at being romantic, “When are you having the rest of the guys over? Because I feel like we should christen a few rooms,” before kissing Derek’s grin away.


End file.
